Penlee lifeboat disaster

[62613]

Today marks forty years since the Penlee lifeboat disaster. The courage displayed by the coxwain of Solomon Browne and his crew was second to none. Having rescued four of the eight crew of the Union Star, they could quite easily have said "Enough, it's time to go home", they went round again to get everyone off, and paid the ultimate price.

 

Given the bashing that RNLI crews are getting in certain quarters at the moment, I think it's important to remember that if you're in trouble on the seas, they will do their utmost to rescue you, no questions asked.

[Bon Accord]

I recently rediscovered on Youtube the BBC documentary made to mark the 25th anniversary in 2006. For those who haven't seen it, it's certainly worth a watch.

Brave men.

 

 

Edited December 19, 2021 by Bon Accord

[spikey]

Brave men indeed. 

 

40 years ago, the missus and I were newly wed and living in Whitstable.  We were skint at the time, by which I mean that we lived from day to day on a ridiculously small amount of money.  On most of those days our main meal that winter was a tin of supermarket mushroom soup with brown rice and suetless dumplings, eaten in front of our one bar electric fire.

 

Walking home from the supermarket one evening the day after (?) the Penlee boat was lost, I came upon the Whitstable lifeboat being towed through the town with the crew collecting for the dependants of the Penlee men.  I had maybe 50 or 60 pence in my pocket after shopping for the few reduced ticket bargains, and on that evening, that was the sum total of our worldly wealth.

 

I put all of it in the RNLI collecting box held out to me by a bloke who took particular note of what I was putting in it, and 40 years on I still remember his exact words - "Thank you sir for that generous donation.  It'll make a big difference."

 

 

[62613]

1 hour ago, Bon Accord said:

I recently rediscovered on Youtube the BBC documentary made to mark the 25th anniversary in 2006. For those who haven't seen it, it's certainly worth a watch.

Brave men.

 

 

The US pilot of the RN helicopter was still visibly moved, even 25 years after the event ."They were only doing a job"

 

[bubbles2]

GWR's tribute to the Penlee lifeboat disaster at the Long Rock TMD open day, from my Flickr pics.

Edited December 19, 2021 by bubbles2

[RichardT]

6 hours ago, 62613 said:

 

Given the bashing that RNLI crews are getting in certain quarters at the moment

Fortunately, the only people bashing the RNLI at the moment are gobs*te blowhards none of whom is fit to lick the boots of any RNLI personnel, so we don’t need to pay any attention to their tedious tabloid opinions, nor do we need to let them sully the memory of the supreme heroism of the Penlee crew.  The modest memorial garden at the old Penlee lifeboat house always catches me with ‘something in my eye’, and listening to that recording of the Coastguard repeatedly calling “Penlee Lifeboat, come in…” and being answered only with static is nothing short of heart-breaking.

 

Richard

Edited December 19, 2021 by RichardT
Spelling

[ejstubbs]

15 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

I recently rediscovered on Youtube the BBC documentary made to mark the 25th anniversary in 2006.

 

It's an excellent and very moving film (pity the aspect ratio is messed up on YouTube, though).  It's scheduled to be broadcast on BBC Four on 11th January coming at 23:00: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00794gz.  I can understand why they might choose to show it other than on the actual 40th anniversary.  Mousehole has its own remembrance ceremony each year: at 8pm on 19th December most of the village's Christmas lights (which in 1981 had been turned on by Solomon Browne crew member Charles Greenhaugh just two days previously) are turned off, leaving just a cross and a pair of angels shining across the village and out to sea.

 

Apparently the government of the day attempted to tax the £3M+ raised for the relief of the people of Mousehole following the disaster.  Nice.

 

I think that to suggest that "they were only doing a job" may be a rather unfortunate - though no doubt accidental - misrepresentation.  As LCDR Russell Smith USN says in the film: " These people don't do it for money.  They do it for the giving, the volunteer work: they give life to other people."  No-one made them do it, or paid them to do it.  They set out in those horrendous conditions* of their own free will because they believed it was the right thing to do: to go to the help of strangers in mortal peril rather than do nothing and leave them to die.

 

* In a 46ft 9in wooden-hulled boat capable of 9kt, against hurricane force winds.  The current Penlee Lifeboat, now based at Newlyn, is a Severn class 56ft 9in vessel with a fibre reinforced composite hull and capable of 25kt.  This, as well as more modest but no less essential stuff all the way down to the iconic RNLI yellow wellies, is the kind of kit that the RNLI is able to equip its crews with these days, funded solely by voluntary donations from people who care, and funds raised by hard-working volunteers onshore..

[laurenceb]

Lifeboat crews head out to sea when sensible people are heading to port. I must have missed something, what morons are having a go at the RNLI?

[2E Sub Shed]

10 minutes ago, laurenceb said:

Lifeboat crews head out to sea when sensible people are heading to port. I must have missed something, what morons are having a go at the RNLI?

 

Nigel Farage for one

[Zomboid]

I wasn't aware that the RNLI were getting a bashing for having the barefaced cheek to not let people drown. Then deserve nothing but total respect and admiration for what they do.

[laurenceb]

38 minutes ago, 2E Sub Shed said:

 

Nigel Farage for one

I see. Say no more

[boxbrownie]

My next door neighbour is coxswain of our local boat, and the weathers and conditions at all times of the day and night beggar belief, all volunteers, all locals, all ordinary people who are truly extraordinary heroes*.

 

 

*they would never call themselves that either.

[Goldhawk]

Quite by chance this afternoon  I happened to hear Solomon Browne, descibed as a poetic drama-documentary, on BBC Radio Four.

It was one of the most moving programmes I have listened to in a long while, for 45 minutes I just sat transfixed, hoping that my listening would not be disturbed. I would definitely say this was radio at its best.

[Northmoor]

17 hours ago, RichardT said:

Fortunately, the only people bashing the RNLI at the moment are gobs*te blowhards none of whom is fit to lick the boots of any RNLI personnel, so we don’t need to pay any attention to their tedious tabloid opinions, nor do we need to let them sully the memory of the supreme heroism of the Penlee crew.  The modest memorial garden at the old Penlee lifeboat house always catches me with ‘something in my eye’, and listening to that recording of the Coastguard repeatedly calling “Penlee Lifeboat, come in…” and being answered only with static is nothing short of heart-breaking.

 

Richard

There has been a Radio 4 documentary-drama this afternoon replaying the story, partly through recollections of those "who were there".  Agreed, that recording of the Officer of the Watch talking to the lifeboat whose transmission suddenly cuts off, is so powerful.  I believe he continued to make that call for two hours, until it was accepted that it was futile.

 

I will watch the TV documentary again; I recall the USN pilot being quite emotional recalling the events and how in his submission to the enquiry saying that nothing in his military service came close to the bravery he saw in the Solomon Browne's crew that night.

[Re6/6]

A radio programme 'Solomon Browne' was on today. It was a moving listen.

 

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0012plp A sad reflection is noted that some of the homes of those lost are now holiday lets. Sign of the times I suppose.. 

 

https://www.itv.com/news/westcountry/2021-12-19/they-never-gave-up-the-penlee-lifeboat-disaster-40-years-on

Edited December 21, 2021 by Re6/6

[Jim Martin]

My trust in Guardian editorials has eroded somewhat in recent years (despite me being a regular reader for 40 years and still agreeing with the paper's core values) so I went to the source and watched one of Farage's videos on YouTube. It starts with a lengthy bit about how he's collected money for the RNLI (no idea if this is true, but it wouldn't surprise me) before accusing the RNLI of employing a PR company (possibly the "same one employed by Meghan and Harry"; which seems quite likely  because, as you may know, there's only one PR company in the whole world) and saying that his fear is that "the RNLI is doing the wrong thing " by rescuing migrants. I watched a bit more, in case he got around to saying what "the right thing " might be; but he didn't. 

[Zomboid]

Deleted (to avoid political rabbit hole on a thread about some heroic lifeboat people)

Edited December 20, 2021 by Zomboid

[ejstubbs]

@Jim MartinI think you managed to find the member for nowhere at all's marginally less inflammatory version.  His Facebook post (go there if you dare) was notably nastier, accusing the RNLI of becoming a "taxi service for illegal immigrants".

 

Or perhaps, as a past supporter of the RNLI, he actually did it as a sneaky way to help raise funds for the organisation - because that's the effect it seems to have had:

 

Donations to RNLI rise 3,000% after Farage’s migrant criticism

 

Quote

 

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has raised more than £200,000 in a single day after defending its work rescuing migrants at risk of drowning in the Channel, while volunteering inquiries have almost quadrupled.

 

The RNLI said it had been inundated with donations and messages of support since its chief executive hit out at Nigel Farage’s claim that it was running a “migrant taxi service”.

 

 

Note: this is not a political post, it is a purely personal response to a particular instance of the revolting bile that the individual in question apparently chooses to share with the human race from time to time.

[ejstubbs]

3 hours ago, Northmoor said:

There has been a Radio 4 documentary-drama this afternoon replaying the story, partly through recollections of those "who were there".

 

Thank you, I shall listen to that shortly.

[62613]

11 hours ago, ejstubbs said:

 

It's an excellent and very moving film (pity the aspect ratio is messed up on YouTube, though).  It's scheduled to be broadcast on BBC Four on 11th January coming at 23:00: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00794gz.  I can understand why they might choose to show it other than on the actual 40th anniversary.  Mousehole has its own remembrance ceremony each year: at 8pm on 19th December most of the village's Christmas lights (which in 1981 had been turned on by Solomon Browne crew member Charles Greenhaugh just two days previously) are turned off, leaving just a cross and a pair of angels shining across the village and out to sea.

 

Apparently the government of the day attempted to tax the £3M+ raised for the relief of the people of Mousehole following the disaster.  Nice.

 

I think that to suggest that "they were only doing a job" may be a rather unfortunate - though no doubt accidental - misrepresentation.  As LCDR Russell Smith USN says in the film: " These people don't do it for money.  They do it for the giving, the volunteer work: they give life to other people."  No-one made them do it, or paid them to do it.  They set out in those horrendous conditions* of their own free will because they believed it was the right thing to do: to go to the help of strangers in mortal peril rather than do nothing and leave them to die.

 

* In a 46ft 9in wooden-hulled boat capable of 9kt, against hurricane force winds.  The current Penlee Lifeboat, now based at Newlyn, is a Severn class 56ft 9in vessel with a fibre reinforced composite hull and capable of 25kt.  This, as well as more modest but no less essential stuff all the way down to the iconic RNLI yellow wellies, is the kind of kit that the RNLI is able to equip its crews with these days, funded solely by voluntary donations from people who care, and funds raised by hard-working volunteers onshore..

I'm well aware of the service that the RNLI gives; at the end of the bar of every ship I was on, there was a collecting box for them; you put a coin in the slot and it launched the lifeboat down the slip.

 

Having said that, the words I chose were probably the wrong ones. Sometimes I struggle to say what I mean.

 

[peach james]

USCG unofficial motto:  You have to go out.  You don't have to come back.

They came for me.  Them and RCM-SAR.

 

I won't say what I think of the Rt Honorable Nigel Farage.  Mostly because Andy Y. would probably have to punt me for it...
 

[Penlan]

On 20/12/2021 at 17:51, Re6/6 said:

A sad reflection is noted that some of the homes of those lost are now holiday lets. 

I live in Mousehole, so as true as the above is, the owners can sell a Terraced Cottage (which probably needs money spending on it anyway) and buy a detached Cottage in Newlyn or Penzance etc., with plenty of garden, a drive and garage etc.,
There are other aspects to this as well, but that's down to the locals.
The main thing that came out of the disaster was a change in Maritime Law, in that a Lifeboat can now take in tow a Ship that is basically in trouble - The Coxswain can now over rule the Captain for the safety of the Ship..  The disaster basically happened (apart from the SE force 12 Gales, 50ft high waves etc.,) because the Captain of the 'Union Star' couldn't contact the Owner - who was at a Christmas Party - to get permission for the Lifeboat to tow the Ship to a safer place - All to do with Salvage rights.
Obviously there's a lot more to this, than stated above, but that's it basically.
All E.& O.E.

[boxbrownie]

9 hours ago, peach james said:

 

 

I won't say what I think of the Rt Honorable Nigel Farage.  Mostly because Andy Y. would probably have to punt me for it...
 

On this subject……probably not 

[Joseph_Pestell]

I have mentioned this before but it is worth repeating. If anyone is visiting Poole, a visit to the RNLI HQ there is a great way to pass a few hours: entertaining and informative.

[Joseph_Pestell]

On 20/12/2021 at 21:29, 62613 said:

I'm well aware of the service that the RNLI gives; at the end of the bar of every ship I was on, there was a collecting box for them; you put a coin in the slot and it launched the lifeboat down the slip.

 

Having said that, the words I chose were probably the wrong ones. Sometimes I struggle to say what I mean.

 

 

I have not seen one of those collecting boxes for years. It was a brilliant concept.