“Once you have sailed in one of these vessels, you will never want to return to the previous designs … They are especially suited to manoeuvring in breaking water, ground seas and heavy surf are no longer as dreaded as they were!”. “For instance, if you have to get to a yacht that is aground amid breaking seas, you go in as close as you can, turn head-on to the surf, and then drop astern until you can get the tow across. Then it is just a question of putting on the power and towing the vessel out into safer waters”.
In a traditional lifeboat, this was just not possible – you would get turned and twisted at every wave” Furthermore, the jets allow you get more and safer power: recently we had to reach a wooden sailing vessel trapped among a breaking ground sea. But with careful handling of the buckets, we reached her at about 10 knots. To do this we would approach the breakers head on and take the high ones by pushing the bow into the breaking water as it hit! By altering the thrust on the twin buckets one can keep the boat in balance, and going forward – of course in the dark it is a little more difficult and we have been knocked all over the place as well; but she always recovers and allows us to carry out our tasks.
But these vessels also allow you to run before a following sea – they are after all very fast and manoeuvrable. Their manoeuvrability also always allows one to get a tow across and the power of the boats then enables one to tow big or small, victims to safety”.