Ox the afternoon of the 18th January the steam trawler Ben Screel, of Aber- deen, with a crew of ten on board, went ashore on the rocks opposite the Girdle- ness Lighthouse, near Aberdeen. A strong south-easterly wind was blowing with a heavy sea.

The Aberdeen Motor Life-boat, the Institution's Life-saving Apparatus at Torry and the Board of Trade's Apparatus at Aberdeen were all called out. The Life-boat, however, found it impossible, except at very grave risk, to get near the wreck, and the work of rescue was left to the two Life-saving Apparatus from the shore.

The Torry Apparatus arrived first, and found the trawler lying on her side on the rocks with four of her crew in the wheel-house and six in the fore-rigging.

The first rocket carried a line over the wreck, but it fell across the triatic stay, which runs from one mast to the other, and the crew could not reach it.

A second rocket was fired, and with great difficulty and risk, owing to the heavy seas breaking on board, the trawler's crew got hold of the line, hauled the hawser on board and made it fast. The breeches buoy was then rigged, but owing to a mistake made by the trawler's crew in fixing the tail- block at their end, the buoy stuck before it reached the wreck, and had to be hauled back again. One of the trawler's crew then succeeded in getting ashore along the hawser.

The Board of Trade Apparatus had now arrived, and fired two lines. The first fell over the lines already fired by the Torry Apparatus and was useless.

The second line succeeded ; a whip, or endless line, was rigged between the wreck and the shore, and the crews of the two Apparatus combined in the dangerous task of bringing the trawler's crew ashore by means of it. In this work a conspicuous part was taken by Mr. James Duncan, R.N., the volunteer- in-charge of the Torry Apparatus. He was down at the water's edge and in the water, and was repeatedly knocked down by the seas. For over a fortnight after the service he was in bed, suffering from a severe chill, bruises, and an injured eye. Thanks to his efforts, and those of the two crews, the nine men in the trawler were rescued, but all of them were numb and exhausted, and some were bruised from being flung against the rocks as they were hauled through the seas. The work of rescue, from the time when the Torry Apparatus arrived on the scene at 5.15 p.m., had taken just two hours.

The Institution has awarded an inscribed silver watch to Mr. James Duncan and has made increased money awards to him, to the sixteen members of the crew, and to the twelve volun- teer helpers, amounting altogether to £28 16s..