Today, surprisingly late in the season, we had our first shout. I had been at the station, trying to repair the ravages of a diesel spill on all our ropes and hawsers (and we have a lot of them). Meanwhile, the cox was on the roof, seeing to the replacement of the navigation lights. The lifeboat secretary had come round, too, with his daughter and her family, and was dealing with the usual headaches of running a station.

Suddenly, the radio and the telephone hotted up. Problem off the Lérins, as usual. Boat had spent the day in paradise, then the motor wouldnt start, and they had drifted into the channel. Not a good place to be, especially once the mad traffic of the return to Cannes had started. We were ordered to intervene, as we had sufficient oomph (or maybe here "va va vroom") to give the tub a decent tow.

So, for the first time since the engine overhaul, the turbochargers really kicked in, and at 1,900 rpm, we sped at 25 knots into the sunset. The tow was without drama, except for the beautiful people gaping at us from the decks of the superyachts. On the way back, we had one or two underwater moments, as we passed through the wake of some pretty big, and certainly very fast, superyachts. I think Charlie is going to be on hosepipe duty pretty soon. We've shipped a fair poundage of salt crystals.