LIFEBOAT MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

Advanced search

L'Etoile, of St Malo

The brig L'Etoile, of St. Malo, from Oette, bound to Riga, laden with salt, got on the rocks a little to the east- ward of Sudmore, at 9'30 P.M., on the 3rd of May. The night was intensely dark, a fresh gale blowing from the S.W., with rain and a heavy ground-swell. The signal light of the vessel in distress was sighted from two separate points by the coastguard, who hastened to the Life-boat stations nearest their respective beats— the one at Brooke, and the other at Brighstone Grange, upwards of three miles apart, and fired the signal gnus, so that both crews were summoned almost simultaneously. With great promptitude the horses were attached, and the Royal Victoria Yacht Club Life-boat, Meseue, at Grange, on her transporting-earriage, im- mediately left for the beach, and was thus conveyed along shore, a distance of a mile and a quarter, to nearly opposite to where the I'Etoile lay stranded. The tide being half-ebb, great difficulty was occasioned in launching, but eventually perseverance and prompt attention, to the commands of the coxswain proved successful, and in twenty minutes after the launch, the Life- boat was near enough to enable the crew of 8 men to escape to the boat by means of ropes, and soon afterwards they were safely landed on the shore. The Brooke Life-boat George and Ann arrived at the wreck about ten minutes after the crew had been taken off by the other Life-boat.