At about midnight on 15-16th February the steam trawler Jeanne, of Ostend, struck the Keldar Steel, an outlying reef near Kettleness, while bound home, with a cargo of fish, from the fishing grounds.

She carried a crew of fourteen. She was seen by the Coastguard at Kettle- ness Point. The Life-boat Station was informed, and the Pulling and Sailing Life-boat Hester Rothschild was launched to her help. A moderate N. wind was blowing, with a very heavy sea, and there was a thick fog. The Life-boat was manoeuvred with great difficulty alongside the Jeanne only to find that the crew had already abandoned her.

By the light of flares men could be seen on the beach under the cliffs but it was impossible to get to them with the Life- boat. All haste was made back to the Station, and the Coxswain sent a search party by the cliffs to the scene of the wreck. After a four and a half mile scramble over rocks and cliffs the party found the Jeanne's crew. They were in desperate plight, for they were very scantily clad and were suffering from exposure. Of the crew of fourteen three men had been drowned or had died from subsequent exposure, for the small ship's boat, to which they had taken only a few minutes before the arrival of the Life-boat, had capsized and thrown all of them into the sea. The eleven survivors were helped up the cliffs by the Life-boat party and the crew of the Kettleness L.S.A. Company which had arrived a little later. But for the prompt action of the Coxswain in sending the search party the eleven men would undoubtedly have died, for they could never have found their way up the strange cliffs in the dark. The Institution sent a Letter of Congratula- tion to the Coxswain. He was also presented with an inscribed gold chrono- meter by the owners of the Jeanne.— Rewards, £45 19s. 6d..