Last Rescue
On the night of 30 November 1898 a steamship was reported as being in difficulty on the Long Sand. The Surfboat managed to obtain a tow from a passing tug, the Harold, but near the Kentish Knock the small boat became rapidly swamped to the extent that the men who were now wearing life jackets were fearful of being washed away, although the tugmen as soon as they realised what had happened brought the boatmen onto the tug and proceeded to calmer waters.
Whilst proceeding inshore they were struck by a very large sea, after which they found only the bow post of the Friend at the other end of the tow~rope.
The damaged craft having broken away drifted right across the estuary as far as Great Yarmouth where it was recovered. Although she was repaired and returned to Margate her days as a surfboat were over and a new surfboat was constructed despite the many advances achieved by the RNLI, much reducing the real need for the boatmen to put themselves to such inordinate risks.
Read more about this topic: Friend To All Nations
Famous quotes containing the word rescue:
“To rescue our children we will have to let them save us from the power we embody: we will have to trust the very difference that they forever personify. And we will have to allow them the choice, without fear of death: that they may come and do likewise or that they may come and that we will follow them, that a little child will lead us back to the child we will always be, vulnerable and wanting and hurting for love and for beauty.”
—June Jordan (b. 1939)
“It was his peculiar doctrine that a man has a perfect right to interfere by force with the slaveholder, in order to rescue the slave. I agree with him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)