One day in 1687 young Sietze Hemmes was walking through the dunes of an island off the Dutch coast when he noticed something unusual in the outer banks: A ship was in trouble! In a flash he was off and running to alert his father, innkeeper and skipper of the volunteer lifeboat. Within minutes Sietze's small village had spring into action, hauling the huge wooden lifeboat to the beach with horses and rowing into the perilous North sea on a dangerous rescue mission.

More than three hundred years later another young Sietze Hemmes was walking through those same dunes when he also noticed something unusual. In a matter of seconds he was off to warn a different, modern-day lifeboat crew that a ship in trouble had fired flares. The crew raced to the beach to man a state-of-the-art motorized lifeboat. 

In these parallel stories the inimitable Peter Spier chronicles a great tradition of bravery and compassion. His meticulously detailed illustrations, brimming with activity and color, not only depict the changing times and technologies but convey the spirit of selflessness and heroism that has kept the volunteer lifeboats of the Dutch coast in action for countless centuries.

From the dust jacket