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| New Brighton Lifeboat. 50th Anniversary of Bronze Medal for Bravery. |
September 15 marks the 50th anniversary of the service by the New Brighton Watson class motor lifeboat Edmund & Mary Robinson to the schooner Happy Harry of Arklow. The Second Coxswain W S Jones was in command and was awarded his second Bronze Medal for bravery by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
The RNLI's official report of the day stated,
There was a full southerly gale blowing off New Brighton with frequent squalls of rain and the sea was very rough. Soon after half past one in the afternoon, the Coastguard noticed a three masted schooner at anchor in the Crosby Channel, near the Beta Boat Beacon. She seemed to be in no difficulty and several other ships passed in and out close to her. Nevertheless, the Coastguard kept her under observation.
It was as well that he did, for at half past eight that evening he saw her burning distress flares. The New Brighton No. 2 lifeboat, Edmund & Mary Robinson was called out fifteen minutes later with Second Coxswain W S Jones in command. The weather was deteriorating with blinding rain and spray reducing visibility to almost nothing. Although the lifeboat's searchlight was used, it was 9.30pm before the schooner was sighted lying alongside the revetment. She was the Happy Harry of Arklow and was some six and a half miles from New Brighton.
Heavy seas were breaking over the schooner and it seemed impossible to get alongside her from windward. The coxswain needed to find a gap in the revetment wall to drive the lifeboat through and eventually over the revetment wall. She bumped several times on the sandbank on the other side, the last bump bringing her alongside the schooner. The four members of the Happy Harry's crew lost no time and jumped onto the foredeck of the lifeboat. The coxswain drove the lifeboat once more across the revetment and arrived back at New Brighton at 11.15pm that evening.
Then and now:
- Fifty years later, the New Brighton lifeboat is an Atlantic 75 rigid inflatable lifeboat, with a top speed of 32 knots, making her the fastest lifeboat in the RNLI fleet. A new Atlantic 75 lifeboat costs £76,250.00. By comparison the Watson class motor lifeboat of the 1950's had a top speed of 8 knots and cost £6,534.00.
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An Atlantic 75 lifeboat. |
- Since the formation of the lifeboat station at New Brighton in 1863, its volunteer lifeboat crews have launched over 1,400 times, saving 1,228 lives.
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