A very thick fog having lifted somewhat about 10 o'clock in the morning of the 20th May, a steamer was sighted aground about half way to the outer part of the rocks off the pier. The No. 1 Life-boat, Robert and Mary Ellis, im- mediately proceeded to her, and on the coxswain boarding her the crew were engaged to salve the vessel. The crew of the No. 2 Life-boat John Fielden were also engaged, they having launched soon after the No. 1 boat Lad put off.

The vessel proved to be the s.s. Cogent, of Sunderland, bound from that place to Lisbon with a cargo of coal.

Anchors were run out and everything possible was done to assist the dis- tressed vessel. When the flood tide had made sufficiently they succeeded in getting her clear. The wind was blowing strongly from N.E. and the sea was rough and increasing, making the position of the steamer very dan- gerous ; had she not been got off when she was she doubtless would have become a wreck..