oilclad

Updated: May 28, 2025

It was black midnight, and no man in the boat could see his neighbour; the pier was like a great iceberg and sheeted with ice; the sea was flying over the oilclad figures in the lifeboat and freezing almost as it fell, rattling against the sails or on the deck, or fiercely hurled into the faces of the men; indeed, every oilskin jacket was frozen stiff before they had been towed a quarter of a mile against the furious sea, which drenched them 'like spray, as the coxswain expressed it, 'from the parish fire engines. The brave fellows were more than drenched they were all but frozen, but no one dreamed of turning back, for though the lightship's rockets had stopped they could see the piteous flares from the distant wreck now and then, as the snow squalls broke, beckoning them on.

Thomas Stanley Treanor - Heroes of the Goodwin Sands