I will be your knight in shining armour - Margate's surfboat The Friend to all Nations became famous in the great storm of 1897, which damaged much of Margate and destroyed the Switchback railway. On the morning of 2 December 1897, thirteen men set out in the surfboat towards the struggling Persian Empire. However the Friend was hit by two waves in quick succession and capsized just off the Nayland Rock. Just four men made it to shore, of whom the medic Charles Troughton died on reaching land. The remaining nine were all beaten to a pulp on the rocks, except for Joseph Epps who was found, barely alive, underneath the capsized boat. This is the memorial to those men, it stands on Margate's seafront, near The Nayland Rock Hotel.
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