At 3.30 P.M. on the 31st October the Coastguard received a message from Broadstairs stating that a small open boat, with one man in her, was out at sea and drifting towards the Goodwin Sands. As a strong northerly breeze was blowing accompanied by a rough sea, the Lifeboat Charles and Susanna Stephens was sent to the assistance of the boat. When she picked up the boat they found a man belonging to Ramsgate was in her quite exhausted and had it not been for their timely arrival the boat would very shortly have been driven ashore on the Sands, where the sea was breaking very heavily, and the man must have been drowned.

The man was taken into the Life-boat, which then returned to her station, but the small boat had to be cast adrift as she filled with water shortly after the man had been rescued..