A VEKY fine service was performed by the Broughty Ferry Motor Life-boat on the llth April, 1919, when she rescued six pilots from the pilot cutter Day Dream, of Dundee. Just before one in the morning the news was received that a ship had run on the Gaa bank at the mouth of the Tay. The night was very dark and cold, and the Life-boat went down the river in the face of a strong easterly gale with a heavy sea. The cutter was foun'd, lying in shallow broken water, and rolling to the waves, which kept breaking over her. The shallowness of the, water and the dark- ness of the night made it a very difficult and dangerous manoeuvre to take the Life-boat near the wreck, and the first attempt was unsuccessful, the Life-boat having to sheer away for fear of being herself smashed against the cutter.

The Coxswain then shouted to the Captain to lower his dingey away, as hanging in the davits it increased the difficulty of getting alongside. This was done, but one of the pilots jumped into her as she was lowered, and was swept away with her by the seas. The Coxswain then anchored and veered down to the wreck. Five separate times he attempted to get alongside, and at the second attempt four of the pilots succeeded in jumping aboard the Life- boat; but it was not until the fifth that the remaining man was rescued, the Life-boat being nearly driven over the wreck in her effort to reach him, and damaging her rudder against the socket of the davits. Search was then made for the dingey with the sixth pilot aboard, but it was not for some time that any answer was received to the flares and shouts. of the Life-boat crew. In the end the dingey was found, having providentially been carried over a bar into comparatively quiet water; but she was already almost full of water, and the pilot aboard her was dazed and exhausted. Two of the crew got into the dingey and brought him into the Life-boat, which safely reached her Station three hours after she had been launched. The cutter became a total wreck.

The Committee of Management felt that this difficult and dangerous service deserved some special recognition, and it was decided to award the Bronze Service Medal to Charles Gall, the Coxswain, and to give an extra mone- tary award to each member of the crew..