Irish Coast Guard Historic Society irishcoastguardhistoricalsociety@eircom.net

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THE BREECHES BUOY RESCUE SYSTEM. The method of transferring people and goods by rope and pulley blocks was in regular use for many years before being used as a method of rescue. It was used regularly for transferring people and stores from one ship to another at sea, and in parts of the world in the 16^th. 17^th and 18^th centuries for landing people and stores where there was no other means of accessing the shore. The difference in these cases was that the equipment required could be rowed ashore in settled weather unlike a storm situation when this could not be achieved. Once the problem of getting the initial line from the shore to the ship was overcome the existing methods could be modified and used for rescue purposes. As this method was perfected the equipment required was adapted, modified and invented to enable the rescue to be executed as efficiently as possible. This approach has been maintained throughout the centuries up to the present day.