Lifeboat Order May Be In Next Month

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31768, 27 August 1968, Page 18

Lifeboat Order May Be In Next Month

If the public response to its appeal was

satisfactory, the Sumner Lifeboat Institution might be able to order a replacement for its 40-year-old Rescue II by about the middle of next month, said the secretary of the institution (Mr W. J. Baguley) yesterday.

If everything went as well as was hoped, the replacement could be in service by the end of the summer.

The institution has an option with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in Britain on a 15-year-old lifeboat. Before it came to New Zealand the lifeboat would be equipped with two new diesel engines, said Mr Baguley. A survey was being made to ensure that the boat was in sound condition.

The Europa Shipping Company had offered to bring the boat to New Zealand free of charge, said Mr Baguley. The institution had already applied for an import licence, and a reply was expected in the next week or so. The institution hopes to raise 815,000 in the next 10 weeks for the replacement. Mr Baguley said that the institution had been given a jet propulsion engine by C. W. F. Hamilton and Company, Ltd. This would be used in a light, high-speed boat which the institution hoped to acquire eventually for small rescues. The boat would be used for inner harbour work in calm weather and would be taken out for such as dinghy accidents where only one or two persons were involved.

It was intended to keep the small boat on a trailer so that it could be taken swiftly by road and launched as near to the scene of an accident as possible. It would be unsuitable for

the open sea or for work in rough weather, and eould not be used when more than one or two persons were involved, said Mr Baguley.