Life on the edge for 200 years
★ THEY are the heroes who have been saving lives at sea for two centuries.
Today marks the 200th anniversary of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, first set up in 1824 by Sir William Hillary, who coined its motto: “With courage, nothing is impossible.”
★ Since then, the brave crews of lifeboats around the UK and Ireland – mostly volunteers – have saved an amazing 150,000 lives around our coasts, with many making the ultimate sacrifice to help others.
Here JAMES MOORE recalls some of the organisation’s most daring and dangerous rescues…
PLUCKED FROM THE ROCKS
A violent storm on the night of March 17, 1907, saw the SS Suevic run aground on treacherous rocks off Lizard Point in Cornwall.
Despite dense fog, four lifeboats – each rowed by oarsmen – battled their way to the vessel after it let off distress flares.
Over the next 16 hours they managed to take off 456 passengers and crew, including 60 babies, with not a single life lost. It remains the largest RNLI rescue to date.
TITANIC EFFORT
As World War One raged, British hospital ship Rohilla was bound for the Western Front when it foundered on a reef off the North Yorkshire coast, near Whitby, during a storm on October 30, 1914.
It soon broke apart, killing some on board and leaving survi vors clinging to the wreckage.
A lifeboat from Whitby valiantly managed to rescue 35 people before becoming too damaged to continue.
One of the first engine-powered lifeboats, the Henry Vernon, from Tynemouth, arrived to save more.
Among the 146 people rescued was Mary Roberts, who’d survived the 1912 sinking of the Titanic.
HEARTFELT THANKS
In the early hours of Valentine’s Day 1979, Panamanian motorboat Revi was in danger of sinking 30 miles off the Yorkshire coast.
When the local lifeboat arrived, it was being swamped by heavy seas in a force 10 gale, with the four-man crew clinging to the rails.
Coming alongside the heaving vessel 35 times before it was claimed by the waves, the four crew were plucked off one by one.
Humber lifeboat coxswain Brian Bevan, inset right, got a gold medal for his efforts.
49 HOUR EPIC!
On February 7, 1936, a SOS came into the Ballycotton station in Ireland that Comet, the Daunt Rock lightship, was drifting helplessly in a huge gale and in danger of being dashed to pieces. In ferocious weather, the crew of the Mary Stanford lifeboat set out to help. Over the next 49 hours with little food or sleep and despite huge waves, they managed to get close enough for the eight exhausted crew to jump or be pulled on to the lifeboat and safety.
DEATH-DEFYING PLUNGE
Henry Blogg served with the Cromer lifeboat in Norfolk for 53 years, saving an incredible 873 lives and becoming the RNLI’s most decorated member. He barely survived himself after being thrown into the sea when his lifeboat HF Bailey rolled on to its side while bidding to rescue crew from the SS English Trader, grounded in a storm in October 1941. Another member of the lifeboat crew was drowned.
After being picked up and returning to shore, Blogg – then 65 – and the remaining crew went back the next morning to successfully save 44 men from the ship.
CHANNEL CHALLENGE
On the evening of January 13, 2008, the lifeboat station at Torbay in Devon was alerted that Greek ship Ice Prince was in trouble 31 miles out in the English Channel.
Its cargo of 5,000 tons of timber had shifted in a gale, causing the large vessel to list and it was soon taking on water.
The lifeboat had to make 50 approaches, but successfully rescued eight crew members, even having to retrieve one who had fallen into the sea.
The Ice Prince soon sank.
DRAG RACE MIRACLE
The stricken sailing ship Forrest Hall was in danger of being wrecked off the Devon coast in January 1899.
But storm conditions were too bad for Lynmouth lifeboat Louisa to launch there.
Instead Coxswain Jack Crocombe organised for the 10-ton craft to be dragged 13 miles overland to the harbour at Porlock Weir, which was more sheltered.
Using crew, helpers and 18 horses, the feat took them 11 hours and included a 400-metre climb.
The Louisa was successfully launched and delivered the stranded ship’s 18 crew back to land.
FESTIVE TRIUMPH
Just before Christmas in 1966, the engine of the Greek freighter Nafsiporos failed. Amid 35ft waves and hurricane-force winds, the listing ship was drifting towards the rocky coast of Anglesey in Wales.
The Moelfre and Holyhead lifeboats launched and, in the dark, battled to get alongside the ship.
Despite a ship’s lifeboat crashing into one of the rescue craft, they managed to pull the 19 crew to safety in a stunning 24-hour operation and no lives were lost.