The Margate surfboat refers to three surfboats used for maritime rescue at Margate, on the eastern tip of Kent. They were run as cooperatives, with local boatmen clubbing together to buy them and then receiving a share of any salvage money received.
A surfboat is an oar-driven boat designed to enter the ocean from the beach in heavy surf or severe waves. It is often used in lifesaving or rescue missions where the most expedient access to victims is directly from the beach.
Margate is a seaside town in Thanet, Kent, South East England, 15 miles (24.1 km) north-east of Canterbury, which includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook.
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west. The county also shares borders with Essex along the estuary of the River Thames, and with the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. The county town is Maidstone.
The first, the Friend of all Nations was wrecked in 1860 but returned to service until 1877. Nine crew of the second boat, Friend to all Nations, died in the storm of 1897, but the boat survived both that and being lost while under tow the following year. A memorial to the nine men stands on the Margate seafront.
A third boat was built in 1899 but by then surfboats powered by oar and sail had been largely superseded by lifeboats. The third boat served as a tender at Chatham during the Second World War and was lost off Ostend in 1957. All three were built by J. Samuel White of Cowes.
A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crew and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine. Lifeboats may be rigid, inflatable or rigid-inflatable combination hulled vessels.
Chatham is one of the Medway towns located within the Medway unitary authority, in North Kent, in South East England.
Ostend is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders, Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke, Raversijde, Stene and Zandvoorde, and the city of Ostend proper – the largest on the Belgian coast.
Friend of all Nations
After the dramatic rescue in January 1857 of the crew of the Northern Belle in which the Margate luggerVictory was lost with all hands, 50 boatmen decided to establish a dedicated surfboat service for maritime rescue.
The Northern Belle was an American transatlantic ship which ran aground near Thanet, England, on 5 January 1857. No lives on her were lost, thanks to heroic rescue efforts, in blizzard conditions. However, another ship sank, en route to the scene, the Margate lugger Victory which was lost along with her crew.
A lugger is a class of boat, widely used as traditional fishing boats, particularly off the coasts of France, England and Scotland. It is a small sailing vessel with lug sails set on two or more masts and perhaps lug topsails.
This first boat, the Friend of all Nations could be launched by four men without the need of horses and entered service in November 1857.[1]
She was almost wrecked on 13 February 1860 attempting to rescue the crew of the Spanish brigSamaritano, which, at about 5.30am, ran onto the Margate Sands in a squall. The alarm was sounded at daybreak by the lugger Eclipse, which sent eight men onto the brig, in the hope that she could be refloated at high tide. However the gale returned and they soon gave up hope of saving the ship. The small Margate boat was launched, but in their haste they did not secure their buoyancy tanks and were driven ashore, barely afloat, in Westgate Bay. Then the Friend of all Nations was launched but it too was overpowered by the storm and was driven onshore about a mile west of Margate. Eventually all those on the remains of the Samaritano were rescued by the Ramsgate lifeboat.[2]
A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and maneuverable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Brigs fell out of use with the arrival of the steam ship because they required a relatively large crew for their small size and were difficult to sail into the wind. Their rigging differs from that of a brigantine which has a gaff-rigged mainsail, while a brig has a square mainsail with an additional gaff-rigged spanker behind the mainsail.
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. Ramsgate’s main attraction is its coastline, and its main industries are tourism and fishing. The town has one of the largest marinas on the English south coast, and the Port of Ramsgate provided cross-channel ferries for many years.
The Friend was repaired and returned to service. She capsized during a rescue in January 1866 and her crew spent 85 minutes in the winter seas before they were rescued.[1] She saved the lives of 38 men from 6 ships in the great storm of November 1877,[1] but the damage inflicted during the rescues led to her retirement.
Friend to all Nations
Memorial to the Friend to all Nations, Margate
The Friend of all Nations being unfit for further service, funds were raised for a replacement. This new boat, the Friend to all Nations, was also built at White's and arrived in Margate on 6 July 1878.
The Friend to all Nations became famous in the great storm of 1897, which damaged much of Margate and destroyed the Switchback Railway.[3] On the morning of 2 December 1897, thirteen men set out in the surfboat towards the struggling Persian Empire. However the Friend was hit by two waves in quick succession and capsized just off the Nayland Rock. Just four men made it to shore, of whom the medic Charles Troughton died on reaching land. The remaining nine were all beaten to a pulp on the rocks, except for Joseph Epps who was found, barely alive, underneath the capsized boat. Memorials were raised to the nine dead on the parade above Nayland Rock, and in Margate Cemetery.
Apart from the mast and rigging, the boat itself was not badly damaged and returned to service. However she was lost on the night of 30 November 1898 while under tow in the Kentish Knock. She was recovered as far away as Great Yarmouth and repaired, but was not used again.
1899 boat
A new boat was commissioned from White's, which was delivered in September 1899. This much larger boat - also called Friend to all Nations[1] - required a crew of 15 and cost £800. Improvements in lifeboats meant that she was largely restricted to local salvage work with the occasional rescue.
One of her most notable rescues was that of 26 people from the sailing ship Marechal Suchet.[1] In 1922 she was motorised following public donations.[1]
She continued in service at Margate until the Second World War, when she was requisitioned by the Royal Navy for service as a ship's tender in Chatham docks.
After the war she moved to Falmouth and made her final journey in 1957 when Willi Froelich, an ex Luftwaffe war prisoner, tried to sail his family home to Germany. They got into difficulty near Ostend and were taken under tow, but the hawser snapped. After drifting for a while, the surfboat broke her bow in rough seas and sank.
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. There are numerous other lifeboat services operating in the same area.
Pamir, a four-masted barque, was one of the famous Flying P-Liner sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. She was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit. Her shipping consortium's inability to finance much-needed repairs or to recruit sufficient sail-trained officers caused severe technical difficulties. On 21 September 1957, she was caught in Hurricane Carrie and sank off the Azores, with only six survivors rescued after an extensive search.
The Guttenburg was a German brig of 170 tons that was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands on 1 January 1860, resulting in the death of 26 of the 31 people aboard.
The Ramsgate tugs were a series of tugboats used at Ramsgate harbour since the 19th century. The harbour's development coincided with the growing use of the steam tugs that were then being built for the shipping industry.
The SS Cap Lopez was a 758 GRT cargo ship that was built in 1885 as Rheinland. She was sold in 1905 and renamed, and became stranded on the south Goodwin Sands on 21 December 1907.
The Wells lifeboat disaster occurred in 1880 when the RNLI lifeboat Eliza Adams, based at Wells-next-the-Sea in the English county of Norfolk, attempted to go to the aid of the stricken brig Ocean Queen in heavy seas and was lost along with 11 of its 13 crew.
Walmer Lifeboat Station was established in 1830. Over two thousand ships are believed to have been wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, and the masts of several wrecks are visible from the shore at low tide. Hence there have always been two lifeboats located at the joined towns of Deal and Walmer along the coast opposite the sands.
RNLB Mary Stanford was a Liverpool-class lifeboat which capsized in Rye Harbour in 1928.
Margate was a "limb" of Dover in the ancient confederation of the Cinque ports. It was added to the confederation in the 15th century.
The Little Ships of Dunkirk were about 850 private boats that sailed from Ramsgate in England to Dunkirk in northern France between 26 May and 4 June 1940 as part of Operation Dynamo, helping to rescue more than 336,000 British, French, and other Allied soldiers who were trapped on the beaches at Dunkirk during the Second World War.
Great Yarmouth and Gorleston lifeboat station is a RNLI base in Norfolk, England. There were originally two separate stations at Great Yarmouth and Gorleston – two coastal towns either side of the River Yare. These were merged in 1926.
The Manchester Unity of Oddfellows was an Oakley-class lifeboat of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) stationed at Sheringham in the English county of Norfolk from 10 July 1961 until 1990 when she was replaced after 29 years service by an Atlantic 75 second generation Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) in May 1992. During the time that The Manchester Unity of Oddfellows was on station at Sheringham, she performed 127 service launches, rescuing 134 lives.
Ramsgate Lifeboat Station is an RNLI station located in the Port of Ramsgate in the English county of Kent. The station is one of the oldest to operate in the British Isles and has launched to many notable services. Over the years its crews have won over 50 awards for gallantry the most recent being in 2000.
Ellen Southard was an American full-rigged merchant ship from Bath, Maine that was built in 1863 by prominent shipbuilder T.J. Southard. She plied international trade routes for twelve years, calling at ports as far away as Sydney.
Royal National Life Boat Lord Southborough , was a Watson Class motor lifeboat of the Royal National Life Boat Institution's fleet, which was stationed at Margate in the English county of Kent in the United Kingdom from 1925 to 1951. From 1951 she served in the R.N.L.I.’s Relief Fleet.
RNLB Freddie Cooper is the current all-weather lifeboat on station in the town of Aldeburgh in the English county of Suffolk. The Freddie Cooper has the operation No: 12-34 and has been on station since 1993. She is a Mersey-class fast carriage lifeboat.
Margate Lifeboat Station is an RNLI station located in Margate in the English county of Kent. The station is over 150 years old and during that time, its crews have launched to many notable services including more than 10 awards for gallantry. Great sadness has also been experienced with the loss of ten members of its crews while saving others at sea.
Eastbourne Lifeboat Station is an RNLI lifeboat station in the town of Eastbourne in East Sussex. Founded two years before the RNLI was established, the station has operated continuously since 1822 and its lifeboats have been responsible for saving over 700 lives. There are two active lifeboat stations in Eastbourne, an all-weather station with the Tamar-class lifeboatDiamond Jubilee at Sovereign Harbour and the D-class Lawrence and Percy Hobbs at the inshore lifeboat station a couple of miles to the west at Fisherman's Green. An older lifeboat station, west of Eastbourne Pier, is now used as an RNLI museum.
SS Stolwijk, a Dutch cargo ship of 2,489 tons, was wrecked off the coast of Donegal on 6 December 1940. She was part of a Convoy SC 13 sailing from the Dominion of Newfoundland to Liverpool, England, when her rudder was damaged in a fierce storm. Attempts to rescue her by her destroyer escort failed and she went on the rocks off Tory Island, County Donegal, Ireland. Ten of her crew were lost but the remaining 18 were rescued the following day by Arranmore Lifeboat and landed safely in Burtonport. The rescue of the survivors was conducted in terrible weather conditions and both the RNLI and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands awarded medals to the Irish lifeboat crew.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
