Ramsgate Lifeboat Open Day 2010

Despite the peculiar Ramsgate climate, although there were times today when it was thunder and rain the sun is now shining, we did manage to get to the lifeboat open day.

I took the inevitable pictures and the children had a wonderful time playing with a real lifeboat.

The pictures are at http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/laptop810b/id14.htm they may take a while to appear as my antique laptop is struggling a bit.

Looking at the lifeboat station with my booksellers hat on I noticed one of the books on their bookshelves is “Storm Warriors or the Ramsgate lifeboat at Work on the Goodwin Sands” I publish a cheap reprint of this book and have published a fair chunk of it online, click on the link to read it http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/storm/index.htm

Oh and last years pictures http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts4/id16.htm for anyone who wants more.

Storm Warriors of the Goodwin Sands

I have just put some more pages of John Gilmore’s book about the work of the Ramsgate Lifeboat on the internet for you al to read click here to do so.

Ramsgate can boast one of the first lifeboats in England, we had a lifeboat before the formation of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. In the days before it was practical to build a boat that was both small enough to use in sea rescue, but with an engine powerful enough to resist storm and tide, the combination of a steam tug and rowed lifeboat was used in many rescues. Most of the rescues were of ships that had gone aground on the deadly Goodwin sands where it would be far too shallow for the steam tug to venture. Often the combination of storm and tide made it impossible for the lifeboat powered as it was by oars and sails to get to the vessel that had floundered. So the tug towed the lifeboat round the outside of the sand until it was upwind of the wreck and then let it go across the Goodwins. While the lifeboat was doing its work the tug would steam round to the other side of the Goodwins in the hope of picking up the lifeboat with those rescued aboard.

The picture is of the tug “Aid” towing the Ramsgate lifeboat.