About 4 o'clock in the afternoon on the 8th January a telephone message was re- ceived from Newcastle stating that a schooner had been sighted to the south- westward drifting in an apparently disabled condition. A look-out was kept and an hour and a half later the vessel was seen to the south-east of Giles Quay. The Life-boat Providence was launched and on reaching the vessel found that she was the schooner Ethel of Drogheda, bound from Dublin to Belfast with a cargo. A heavy sea was running and in the fresh E.N.E. gale the schooner's foreyard was carried away and all the head sails had blown away. At the request of the Master five of the Life-boatmen went aboard and stowed the torn canvas; the Life- soat then stood by the vessel until the weather moderated about 3 A.M. the next morning..