What to do The heart and soul of the town is the Royal harbour complete with obelisk, Georgian lighthouse, lifeboat station and yacht marina.
Related: D-day veteran, 89, who ran off to France for anniversary: 'I'd do it again' "That spirit, that determination, is embedded deep within the psyche of our volunteer lifeboat crews who go to sea to save others in peril on the sea.
In Cornwall, a state of the art lifeboat station keeps lifesavers warm with the UK's first marine source heat pump, there's also community-owned river turbines in the Philippines and a rapid-recharge electric ferry in Sweden.
Norman Lamb from North Norfolk has campaigned on insurance cover for lifeboat crews, and Richard Younger Ross from Teignbridge has initiated debates on the dangers of ragwort and the problems of small brewers.
After the eight rowers and their cox had been taken by lifeboat to Putney, their sunken boat was recovered and returned to the crew's base.
In 2012 a Chiswick lifeboat took the protester Trenton Oldfield ashore after he leapt into the path of racers to publicise what he described as "elitism and the inequality that arises out of elitism".
Earlier this year, following the collapse of part of the Hanbo conglomerate and Sammi, another steel maker, the country's banks decided to launch a "lifeboat service" to save companies caught out by the slowing economy.
But, as he told this writer, he always saw it as a lifeboat, too.
Oblivious to the grieving around them, tourists chattered, some it is said thinking that the cannon's boom marked a lifeboat launch.
New "narrow" banks would be guaranteed a seat in the lifeboat by the state and heavily regulated for the privilege.
But as everybody now knows, it was fit only for fair-weather sailing, with an anarchic crew and no lifeboat.
