son of Mary Stanford, paid for another lifeboat to be named Mary Stanford, built, in 1930, by Saunders-Roe of East Cowes - RNLB Mary Stanford (ON 733) had an illustrious career saving 122 lives. The lifeboat was sailed from East Cowes and was placed on station at Rye Harbour on 19 October 1916. On 25 November of that year, she was launched on exercise in weather conditions that 'fairly tested her'. The coxswain, crew and officers of the Institution were satisfied with the result of the exercise. In 1920 the RNLI sent out a circular to all lifeboat crews around the country asking what type of lifebelt was preferred. The crew at Rye expressed a preference for the No 3 Lifebelt – the Kapok. Exhaustive experiments had been made up to September 1917 by the Institution, with co-operation with the Board of Trade and their officers, to ensure that Jackets of No 3 pattern fulfilled the purposes for which they were designed. The belts had fulfilled the purposes under the conditions of the experiment. During her twelve years at Rye Harbour the Mary Stanford was launched 63 times, 47 launches were exercises and sixteen were call-outs when ten lives were saved. On one of these, on 12 December 1923, an aeroplane ditched in the sea off Fairlight. The lifeboat towed the plane back to station, but the pilot, an American, L.B. Sperry, was lost when he had tried to swim ashore before the lifeboat arrived on scene. During her time she had three coxswains. The first was William Southerden, who took delivery of the vessel in 1916 and was coxswain until 1919. He was followed by Joseph White until 1924, when Herbert Head took over unto 1928. Circumstances Incident On the night of 14 November 1928 a south-west gale swept up the Channel with winds in excess of 80 mph (128 km/h). Just after 4:00 am on the 15th, the small Steamer Alice of Riga, laden with a cargo of bricks, was in collision with the larger German vessel Smyrna. In the collision the Alice lost her rudder and had a hole torn in her side. The weather was then too bad for the Smyrna to effect a rescue, and at 4:27 am the Ramsgate Coastguard Station received a message passed on by North Foreland Radio – "Steamer. Alice of Riga. Leaking. Danger. Drifting SW to W 8 miles from