One Crew Newsletter 10032026:
Welcome to another Newsletter, just 3 items, but 3 very important ones.
“Storm Fest 160”
This year marks the 160th Anniversary of the Great Storm of January 1866, the year Torbay received its first Lifeboat. Briefly, just to remind you, extremely bad weather forced a large number of boats, including fishing trawlers to seek the relative shelter of Brixham, however a sudden change in wind directions placed the vessels at the mercy of the waters with disastrous results.
News of the disaster reached the lifeboat station at Teignmouth and they responded by bringing their boat overland to Torquay where they launched and came to our aid. Some weeks later the generous communities of Exeter raised enough donations for Torbay to receive its first Lifeboat the “City of Exeter”.
To celebrate/commemorate this occasion our Crew and their partners together with the Teignmouth Crew and families plan to re-enact the event with the help of Brixham Gig Club members (without the storm!!) on Saturday 22 August. The Brixham Gig Club have kindly allowed one of their gigs to be available wrapped in original lifeboat colours and be pulled from Teignmouth to Torquay where it will be launched and our Crew and Gig Club members will row it across the Bay arriving at the “Man & Boy” landing around 2 p.m. where Helen Lovell-Smith will conduct a short ceremony in remembrance of that tragic occasion in our history.
“Crew Fest ‘26”
This date has also been chosen to stage this year’s Food/Music event. In view of the Gig Pull event, the Crew who would normally arrange and deliver the Crew Fest event will be doing other things and TLF have been requested to take care of the day-to-day planning and management of Crew Fest.
This isn’t the daunting task it may initially seem, we have plenty of information/management plans available from previous years, the Bar, Food Stalls, Music is all being taken care of without our involvement, however there are other tasks that need providing i.e. First Aid, Children’s Entertainment, Cream Teas and of course our usual role of managing the Entrance and Raffle ticket sales.
To that end I really would like to hear from any of our Supporters if you feel you would like to help on the day or in the couple of days leading up to the event. In reality 22 August is not THAT far away when an Event of this magnitude is being planned, and I cannot do it single-handed!!.
“Offshore Festival”
This year the highly successful Food/Music festival is being held on the weekend of 9/10 May. As last year it is being held on the “Banjo” (between Princess Theatre & Marina Car Park) and like last year we need Supporters to manage the two Entrances. Again, entry will be by Donations (Bucket or Contactless Cards) + issuing of Wristbands. We learnt plenty from 2025 and one of those was the capacity of staff we require to enable a speedy entry for “customers”.
With two Entrances in operation that means 8 volunteers every 2 hours, a significant undertaking, however with us receiving £9k from just one day last year, the potential income, is quite significant over the whole weekend.
We are not seeking a commitment on both days (although that would be gladly received !!) but just 2 hours on either the Saturday or Sunday would be gratefully appreciated.
Please contact Debbie on 07799 055680 deb.s.phillips@btinternet.com
Nigel 07887 846934 nigeldcoates@msn.com
or myself 01803 855329 thorppeter13@gmail.com or reply to this Newsletter.
Take Care
Peter
Torbay Lifeboats 