The Mary Stanford Lifeboat House

Unused since 15th November 1928. On that day the lifeboat was launched with a crew of 17 to answer the distress call of a Latvian ship ‘Alice of Riga’ which had been in a collision with a German ship ‘Smyrna’. The wind was blowing in excess of 80 mph - the crew manhandled the 4 ton boat over the shingle and sand, then pushed off into the storm. As they rowed away word was received that the crew of the Alice had all been saved. The lifeboat crew could not see the signals from the shore, and the lifeboat continued on. The storm overcame them and all 17 crew perished. To the small town of Rye Harbour, where all the volunteers came from, this was a tragedy of unspeakable proportions.