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Star (Christchurch), Issue 19122, 15 July 1930, Page 6

qnilE WORLD’S LARGEST and fastest -*■ motor lifeboat recently christened at Dover by the Prince of Wales is named after Sir William Hillary, the founder of the Royal Lifeboat Institution. Lifeboats may be said to date from a fireside conversation in the newsroom of the Law House, South Shields, after the stranding of the ship Adventure on the Herd Sands in 1789. Money was subscribed by the men of the town and a prize offered for the best type of boat. The design of Henry Greathead was accepted. Greathead in his boat embodied principles that are still followed by boat builders to-day. Great use was made by these early lifeboat designers of the fact that if a spheroid is divided into quarters the separate portions cannot be readily upset in water and cannot remain bottom upwards. Founded in 1824, the Royal Lifeboat Institution was dependent oil the financial assistance of well-wishers and supporters, and it was not until 1850 that it was put on a sound basis. By 1911 the number of lives saved was over 50,000, and from 1911 to 1924 the number saved averaged 769 a year. The number of rescues to the credit of this institution still increases, and the growing use made of aircraft of all descriptions makes vigilance more necessary when an aircraft is likely to have to make a forced landing on the sea at any time.