Lifeboat station

“ It is now very rarely the case that lifeboats are lost. In some places steamers are used to tow the lifeboat out to sea; but in most instances she alone can approach a wreck sufficiently near to take off the crew. The cost of establishing a lifeboat on a station is estimated at eight hundred pounds, five hundred and fifty being the price of the boat, her stores, and carriage, and two hundred and fifty pounds that of a substantial boat-house, while the annual cost is about seventy pounds. ”

“ Nearly half a million was spent on building cottages, and half as much on drainage, new roads, and bridges. His love of his old profession was manifested in a long series of wise foundations and endowments in aid of sailors. In 1851, on the occasion of the Great exhibition, he offered a prize for the best model of a lifeboat, and his influence led to a new activity in the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, brought into practical use the self-righting lifeboat, and promoted the establishment of lifeboat stations all round the coasts of the British Isles. ”

“ The later and better built stations have interior walls of lath and plaster, and are furnished outside with cisterns for the collection of rain-water. The lack of fresh water on the beaches is one of the hardships of station-life.
The life-boat stations are usually twenty-four feet high from base to peak forty-two feet long by twenty-two feet wide, exterior measurements, and contain a loft above, and a room below twelve feet high, twenty feet wide, and forty feet long, for the accommodation of the life-boat and its gear. ”

“ No time was now lost in weighing the anchor and setting sail for home. Slowly the lifeboat made headway against the storm, as if she was wearied and fain would rest. Just as the wintry sun glinted across the sea, the keel grated on the beach at Deal. Out sprang the lifeboatmen and dragged her into shallow water, with her burden of five Frenchmen and twelve Swedes, who were heartily welcomed, and taken where warmth and comfort awaited them. ”

“ Not a single figure was visible in the rigging, and on that desolate, wave-swept deck no mortal man could keep his footing for five seconds.
"All must have perished!" Such was the painful conclusion arrived at by the lifeboatmen as they approached the stranded vessel, but it would never do for them to return and say that they thought all the crew had been swept away; they must go and find out for certain. The tow rope was accordingly thrown off, the sail was hoisted, and the lifeboat darted among the breakers. ”

“ From time to time she could be seen through the mist, and it was evident that her captain and crew were making every effort to head her out to the open sea; but there was little chance of success with such a furious gale blowing directly inshore. Anchors were thrown out in the hope of averting the threatened disaster, but they were of no use, and soon the vessel was drifting helplessly to the shore. "Man the lifeboat! man the lifeboat!" was then the cry, and coastguards and fishermen rushed off to the boathouse at full speed.
LIVES IN PERIL. There was not a moment to spare. ”

“ They replied that they had a steam tug waiting not far off, and said that they would take the passengers and crew off in parties to her. As the boat rose on the crest of a wave, two of the brave fellows caught the ship's ropes and climbed on board. "Who are you?" shouted the captain as they jumped down on to the deck among the excited passengers. "Two men from the life-boat," and at these words the men and women crowded round them, all eager to seize them by the hand, some even clinging to them in the madness of their terror. ”

“ There was nothing approaching bravado in their looks, nothing to give a spectator any idea that they were about to engage in a matter of life or death, to themselves and the crew of the ship clinging to the fore-rigging of the Northern Belle. They had no hope of a decoration or of a pecuniary reward when, with a coolness of manner and a calmness of mind which contrasted strongly with the energy of their movements, they bounded into the lifeboat to storm batteries of billows far more appalling to the human mind than batteries surmounted by cannon and bristling with bayonets. ”

“ I had the privilege of standing on Ramsgate pier-head on November 11, 1891, when amidst the cheers of the crowd, who indeed could hardly keep their feet, the tug and lifeboat slowly struggled out against the great gale which blew that day. The lifeboat is towed a long way astern of the tug-boat, to the full scope of a sixty fathom, five inch, white Manilla hawser, and on the day I speak of, as the lifeboat felt the giant strain of the tug-boat and was driven into the seas outside the harbour, every wave broke into wild spray mast high over the lifeboat and into the faces of her crew. ”

“ Each man buckles on his lifebelt, and takes his place in the lifeboat. Those who have failed to get a place help to run it down to the white line of surf, over the well-greased boards laid down on the shingle. The coxswain stands up in the stern with the rudder lines in his hands, watching for a favourable moment to launch. The time has come, the order is given, and away dashes the lifeboat on her glorious errand. ”

“ My paper is on the Life Saving Service of other countries. Great Britain, which has a coast almost five thousand miles long, has a Royal National Life–boat Institution. It is supported by voluntary offerings. Its object is to provide and maintain life–boats, and it also rewards efforts to save the shipwrecked at points where it may have no station. A life–boat with all necessary equipments, and that would include carriage, will cost somewhat over three thousand dollars, and a boathouse can be built for about seventeen hundred. ”

“ The methods of work in the life-saving service have long been familiar, partly because at each of the recurring expositions of late years, the service has been represented by a model station and a crew which went daily through all the operations of shooting a line over a stranded ship, bringing a sailor ashore in the breeches-buoy or the life-car, and drilling in the non-sinkable, self-righting surf-boat. Along the Atlantic coast the stations are so thickly distributed that practically the whole coast from Sandy Hook to Hatteras is continually under patrol by watchful sentries. ”

“ This was done, and the boat lay-to till the sudden fury of the gale had spent itself. Then the anchor was hoisted in and all sail made for the wreck.
Again the anchor was let go, just to windward of her, and the lifeboat was veered cautiously down. As they drew nearer, the men could see the crouching figures of the sailors lashed to the rigging. They seemed more dead than alive, and gazed upon the men who were risking their own lives, to save them with the fixed stare of indifference or death. The lifeboat ran in under the stern and was brought up alongside. ”

“ Then he congratulated himself and his Parish on the transporting carriage which had also been provided, by means of which the lifeboat could be quickly conveyed to the water's edge, and launched in heavy surf.
He had much also to say as to lesser equipments,—anchors, cables life-buoys, grapnels, rockets; and, above all, the cork lifebelts to be worn by the crew, the buoyant and flexible make of which had greatly delighted him.
"With one of those belts on, a man wearing heavy clothing may not only float safely, but may keep another person afloat also," he said. "It's a marvellous invention. ”

“ At Broadstairs, which lies a little to the north of Deal, the crew of the lifeboat had been on the look-out, and no sooner did they see the rocket and hear the gun, than they launched their boat and put off to the rescue.
It is generally found that there are more men to man the lifeboats on many parts of our coasts than are required, and this is specially the case on the Kentish coast. Hence, when the signal-rocket goes up on a stormy night, many eager eyes are on the watch, and there is a rush to the boat in order to secure a place. ”

“ Whatever interest my readers may have felt in the narrative of gallant deeds wrought at one life-boat station on the coast, must be intensified at the thought of the noble work that is going on all round our sea-girt land—that, at almost all dangerous places where vessels are likely to be in distress, or lives in peril, there are life-boats ready to be manned, and brave fellows ever anxious promptly to launch forth 'mid the wind and sea, and battle their way to the rescue of the perishing. ”

“ To the unnautical mind, the shortened ray seemed to draw the lifeboat in and in, till the conning-tower stood clear to the straining eye; in and in, till to the right of the main origin of light dim figures took shape; in and in, till just before the oarsmen had brought the lifeboat alongside the shelving body, topped with its low deck, suddenly the light ray was extinguished. Lifeboat and submarine swung an instant in an equal blackness. Out of it a voice, again in those strange accents. No answer till an English tongue spoke from the lifeboat, "We can understand a little German." ”

“ While hot coffee and dry clothes were making every one comfortable at the station, it was Tom Walker, one of the surfmen out patrolling, that hurried into the living–room, startling the station crew with the announcement, “There’s a man in the Chair!”
If a rocket from some wreck at sea had come up through the floor of the station and made its hideous, fiery racket in the very midst of the station crew, a greater excitement could not have followed. ”

“ It is supported by donations. The last report I saw, gave it seventy–four life–boat stations, twenty of these having the mortar or rocket apparatus. There must be a larger number now. In 1880–81, it saved two ships and a hundred and twenty–two lives; and from May, 1880, to May, 1881, its members subscribed over a quarter of a million of dollars. Germany has flat sandy beaches, and it cannot so well use England’s heavy boats. It is said that in Russia, Italy and Spain, life saving societies patterned more or less after England’s ‘National Life–boat Institution,’ have been organized. ”

“ Here there was a large concourse of boatmen and others awaiting them. The men in the lugger,—seeing the lifeboat come up and feeling that the storm was almost too much for them, and that their services were not now required,—had returned to the shore and spread the news.
The instant the lifeboat touched the shingle, a huge block and tackle were hooked on to her, the capstan connected with these was already manned, and the boat was run up high and dry with the crew in her. ”

“ Willoughby was hoping to hear more about Mildred Pattison, the Vicar swerved off again to the subject of the lifeboat itself, and dashed into an eager explanation of its make and its merits.
He described the wonderful self-righting power of a lifeboat; the air-cases to which it owes its buoyancy; the tubes through which may escape any water shipped by the boat; the life-lines hanging outside, in readiness to be caught and clung to by any man overboard. ”

“ By means of this carriage, which is simply a framework on four wheels, the lifeboat can be used along a greater extent of coast than would otherwise be possible. It is quicker and less laborious to convey the boat by land to the point nearest the wreck, than to proceed by sea, perhaps in the teeth of a furious gale. In addition to this a carriage is of great use in launching a boat from the beach, and there are instances on record when, but for the carriage, it would have been impossible for the lifeboat to leave the shore on account of the high surf. ”

“ There are not only wrecks to be visited, but vessels coming too near shore in the night time must be warned off by the faithful patrolman’s signal light. A vessel may be stranded, and need to be “worked off.” If a fisherman’s dory, or a millionaire’s yacht, should meet with any kind of a disaster, if some unlucky traveler by the sea may tumble into the water from his little craft, if any party of mariners, disabled for any reason, may need shelter and refreshment, it is the life saving station that is expected to furnish help for all the above cases. ”

“ LIFE-SAVING STATION AT WELLFLEET. sand cuts their faces to bleeding and still the furious surf makes playthings of their lifeboats, so that manhood has no less heroic opportunity than in the earlier days. The crew at one of these stations, after an exposure of twelve hours on the wintry beach, failed in every effort to launch the surf-boat and had to see the rescue they should have made effected by a crew of fishermen volunteers. ”

“ THEY BENT THEIR BACKS TO THE OARS. About midnight, the long-expected catastrophe took place, the cable broke and the vessel was driven on the rocks. In the storm and darkness it would have been worse than useless to launch the lifeboat, so the men were reluctantly compelled to put off the rescue till a new day should give them sufficient light to see what they were doing. Next morning, about seven o'clock, the remains of the ill-fated ship could be seen, and lashed to the only remaining mast were the figures of twenty-three perishing sailors. ”

“ When we think of the vast extent of our dangerous coasts, and of our immense interest in shipping, averaging arrivals and departures of some 600,000 vessels a year; when we think of the number of lives engaged, some 200,000 men and boys, besides untold thousands of passengers, and goods amounting to many millions of pounds in value, the immense importance of the lifeboat service cannot be over-estimated. ”