The Early Days
The service was started by Mr Philip-Gordon Pierce Smith who still (at the time of writing - July 2008) runs the service he started nearly 47 years ago.
Venturers started on limited funds and equipment, patrolling Poole Harbour with a small prototype Deep V soft bottom hulled inflatable developed by David Doderell of SWMF in Poole. It proved to be a fantastic hull until the bottom stretched or the wooden keel snapped. The crews had RAF Lifejackets and anoraks, navigation was done with a AA road map and hand held compass, a far cry from the current standards. Since then the service has developed, seeing many different rescue boats and hundreds of crew.
Read more about this topic: Venturers Search And Rescue
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or days:
“We do not preach great things but we live them.”
—Marcus Minucius Felix (late 2nd or early 3rd ce, Roman Christian apologist. Octavius, 38. 6, trans. by G.H. Rendell.
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)