Testing the Breeches Buoy
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Lifesaver with Lyle Gun (c) Strawbery Banke Archive

Strawbery Banke Presents
HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH #108

Here the men of the Jenness Beach Lifesaving Station in Rye demonstrate their new "breeches buoy". The Lyle gun firing here could shoot a line hundreds of feet to the crew of a foundering vessel. Victorian lifesavers also used a piece of equipment we still use today -- the surfboard. 


 

HISTORIC PHOTOS of the Greater Portsmouth Area appear here weekly

Firing Breeches Buoy on Rye Beach (c) Strawbery Banke Archive / SeacoastNH.com

From HISTORIC PORTSMOUTH
Early Photographs from the Collections of Strawbery Banke
by James L. Garvin & Susan Grigg, Peter Randall Publisher
(c) Strawbery Banke Museum . All rights reserved

SEE ALSO Rye Lifessaving Station

BONUS CLOSE-UPS

Firing breeches buoy in Rye, NH (c) Strawbery Banke Collection on SeacoastNH.com

Members of Jenness Beach Lifesaving Station in Rye, NH (c) Strawbery Banke Collection on SeacoastNH.com