RM_Ballantyne_Battles_with_the_Sea

To see the transcribed text with images (if possible) use the FB2 version. This is one of Ballantyne's short books, of which he wrote 24, with the intention that they should be sold as cheaply as possible so that they could be bought by or for the less well off reader. As with all of these 24 this book is thoughtfully illustrated and well written. The Battles described are not naval battles, but mankind's constant wrestling against the power of water in storms. So this book contains stories of rescues by lifeboats, together with the part played by lightships, and it also describes some of the equipment carried or worn. Ballantyne had the good fortune to be allowed to stay for a fortnight on the Gull lightship, which was stationed near the deadly Goodwin Sands. The thing to know about the Goodwins is that the sand is as hard as concrete, so that a vessel merely touching them is just about done for. The other thing is that the tides run extremely hard in those waters, because it is almost in the narrows of the English Channel, where the tides run from the North Sea into the Channel on the ebb, and vice-versa on the flood. He was on that lightship in March, in expectation of a winter storm, which (happily) did not materialise, but there was a hard blow one night. A vessel ran aground near another of the lightships, which signalled by firing a gun. The Gull lightship repeated the signal, so as to inform the lifeboat stations of the situation. This brought out the Broadstairs lifeboat and also the Ramsgate one. However, by the time they got to her the vessel had been wrecked, the crew having been able to get off in their own boat and having been taken on board of the lightship not too far away. Unusually for Ballantyne, apart from the above anecdote, and a few others, there is no tale woven into this book. The subject is too big and the book too small to fit one in. It is worth reading if you are interested in the state of the art in 1883, the year in which this book was published.