A TRAGIC disaster occurred on the coast of Cornwall during a severe gale which struck the coast towards the end of August, when the cutter Islander, of the Royal Yacht Squadron, was driven ashore in Lantivet Bay, about three miles from Fowey, on the evening of the 20th, and all on board were drowned.

The Islander was a yacht of 22 tons, fitted with an auxiliary two-cylinder motor of 13 h.p., giving her a speed of four knots in calm weather. On 9th August she was chartered to Commodore the Right Hon. H. Douglas King, the Member of Parliament for North Paddington, and Under-Secretary of State for Mines in the last Conservative Ministry, and set out on a cruise along the South Coast. On the 20th she had on board, besides Commodore King, five men, all familiar with the sea. She left Dartmouth that day in the hope of making Falmouth, 61 miles away, by night.

At 7.45 in the evening, half an hour before sunset, she was seen near the bell buoy which marks a very dangerous rock off Lantivet Bay.

Shortly after this the weather got very ugly, and a man on the cliff saw what at first he thought to be a light on the bell buoy, but which, when it moved, he concluded to be a flare. The news was sent by car to the Coastguard Station at Polruan, near Fowey, and was received at 9.28.

It was telephoned at once to the Fowey Life-boat Station, and nine minutes later the Motor Life-boat was under way. The wind was then blowing at gale force, varying from E.S.E. to S.S.E. A very heavy sea was running, rain was falling, and visibility was poor.

About 10.10, just half an hour after launching, the Life-boat picked up the Islander with her search-light. The yacht was then less than 200 yards from the cliffs, and the Life-boat, 100 yards further out, was already in broken water. The Coxswain dropped anchor and veered down towards the yacht, but she was moving too fast towards the cliffs, with every sea that broke going over her. The Life-boat's line-throwing gun was fired, but the line fell short.

The Coxswain then gave the Life-boat more rope, in an attempt to get still nearer, and a second line was got ready to fire, but while this was being done, the yacht, which all the time had been getting nearer to the cliffs, struck the rocks and went down.

Meanwhile attempts had been made to rescue the Islander's crew from the land. The Board of Trade Rocket Apparatus had been hurried to the top of the cliffs, and about the time when the Life-boat was dropping anchor, it fired a rocket. The rocket fell short.

A Gallant Attempt.

Two men, Mr. Roseveare and Mr.

Hunt, then climbed down the cliff in the hope that they might be able to rescue the crew as the yacht came ashore. She j was driving straight towards the Island Rock. Getting a rope from a boat laid up in one of the coves, they succeeded in scrambling over the rocks, and jumped on to the Island Rock itself, across a broad deep channel which separated it from the shore. There they heard cries for help, and there, still afloat, was the yacht, not more than a few feet away from the rock, in breaking sea, but still held by her anchor.

The Life-boat's searchlight was play- ing on her intermittently. In that light, and by the light of a torch which Mr.

Roseveare carried, they could clearly see a man standing by the mast, four others crouching in the cockpit, and a sixth lying on the deck. The yacht had lost all her sails; her mast was broken ; the only spar intact was the bowsprit.

Whether the men were injured or ill or simply exhausted will never be known, but only the man by the mast seemed capable of action. Mr. Rose- veare and Mr. Hunt succeeded at the second attempt in getting their line to him. He made it fast to the stump of the mast and tried to reach the rock holding on to it, but a big wave drove him back.

Those on the rock called to him to get a bigger rope. He heard them, for he called back : " Wait a minute; " found a rope, and bent it to the line. This rope Mr. Eoseveare and Mr. Hunt, with the help of three other men who had joined them on the Island Rock, hauled across, and made fast to a pinnacle of the rock, but at that moment the yacht began to move. She was carried off by the seas ; her bows hit a ledge close to the Island Rock ; her stern was in deep water.

Then a wave crashed on her deck ; the six men were washed off ; and the yacht sank until only the top of her mast was visible.

Even then the men on the Island Rock did not give up their efforts. They made for the water's edge, and one of them, Mr.

Dunn, with a line tied round him, went into the water. For a moment a man's arm was seen, but Mr. Dunn was beaten back by a heavy sea, and the arm dis- appeared.

The tide was rising, and if the men on the rock were to reach the mainland in safety they must return at once. They climbed the cliff and reported that no more could be done. So ended their very gallant attempt to rescue the six men on the Islander.

Commodore King's body was washed ashore. The funeral service was held in London, and the body cremated. The ashes were then brought to his home at Sheringham in Norfolk, and at sunset on 26th August they were taken out to sea in the Sheringham Life-boat and there scattered.

Criticisms were made that there were defects in the system of coast-watching, and that because of these defects the plight of the Islander was not seen earlier. The Board of Trade, which is responsible for the Coast-watching Force, decided at once to hold an inquiry, and this was opened at Fowey Town Hall, on 21st October. The President of the Court was Mr. A. E. Digby, K.C., who had the assistance of three assessors.

Mr. A. T. Bucknill represented the Board of Trade. The Institution was represented by Captain R. L. Hamer, R.N., Deputy-Chief Inspector of Life- boats.

The inquiry lasted six days, and the Court was asked to answer thirty questions. The Court found, in fact, that there had been defects in the Coast- watching system on the night when the Islander was wrecked and that these defects caused delay in rendering help to the Islander.

With regard to the Life-boat, the finding of the Court of Enquiry was as follows: " So far as the Life-boat is concerned, when the Life-boat succeeded in picking up the Islander, with her searchlight, the Islander was then only two hundred yards or less from the rocks and in breaking water. The Life-boat proceeded in as close as was possible in the sea then running, and then anchored, and en- deavoured, by means of her Birmingham Small Arms Gun, to fire a line over the Islander, but this shot fell short. It was quite impossible for the Life-boat to pro- ceed further in, and her failure to be able to render assistance was due to one thing, and one thing only, that, through no fault of her own, she arrived too late.".