IN the early morning of 27th July a number of fishing boats went out from Moelfre, Anglesey. A gale sprang up and all the boats returned but one.

It was a sailing boat with only one man on board, Captain Owen Jones. The Life-boat went out to search for him, but no trace of him or his boat could be found. It was supposed that the boat had capsized, that he was pinned beneath it, and that with the ballast on board it had sunk and carried his body down. On the day of his death Captain Jones would have celebrated his golden wedding.

Captain Owen Jones was a Gold Medallist of the Institution. He won the Medal for one of the outstanding Life-boat services of the present century, the rescue by the Moelfre Pulling and Sailing Life-boat of three men from the ketch Excel on 28th October, 1927.

Captain Jones was not a regular member of the Life-boat Crew, but went out when he could and was always ready to place his local knowledge and experience at the service of the Station.

On this occasion the Coxswain was away and the Life-boat was in charge of the Second Coxswain with Captain Jones to help him. The two shared the responsibility for the heroic measure which enabled the Life-boat to rescue the Excel's crew. They found the ketch waterlogged and on the point of sinking, and without hesitation they sailed the Life-boat right over her. The three men of her crew were seized and dragged on board and the Life-boat was washed back, stove in in three places. Full of water, and with her jib blown to ribbons, the Life-boat beat back against the gale, and during that night of suffering two men died on board. The rest arrived completely exhausted. They had been out for seventeen hours.

Both the Second Coxswain and Captain Owen Jones were awarded the Institu- tion's Gold Medal and each member of the Crew the Bronze Medal..