In pictures: Artist Mick Bensley recreates Sussex ship rescues in paintings
- Published
An artist from East Sussex is exhibiting a series of paintings recreating 18 rescues by the crews of 11 lifeboat stations off the Sussex coast.
Mick Bensley, who has lived and worked in Rottingdean, Brighton, for 25 years, said his time growing up in Norfolk was spent "on the beach, listening to the lifeboatmen and fishermen's stories of the sea".
One of his paintings depicts the events of January 1877, when the barque Ida was grounded opposite the Grand Hotel in Brighton. The Robert Raikes lifeboat rescued one man and the Town lifeboat saved 10. Three more men swam ashore in heaving seas and were dragged to safety by onlookers.
Another artwork portrays the stranding of the Liburnia of Arundel in March 1905. The Shoreham lifeboat was launched in a hail storm, and was seriously damaged. All 10 of the ship's crew were taken to safety and the lifeboat was brought back to the harbour.
After the wrecking of three ships near Brighton during a storm in November 1840, Coastguard Digby Marsh and some of his men were lowered down cliffs at Black Rock. They rescued the stricken crew of the Offerton, one of the ships. Three other coastguards waded into the surf and helped to rescue the crews of the Mary and the Sir John Seale, saving all 22 men on board.
The exhibition also includes the rescue of the seven-strong crew of the Danish schooner Vega in 1954 after it began taking in water to the south west of Beachy Head. The paintings will be on display at the Grange Museum and Art Gallery in Rottingdean until 10 September.