AT 7.20 on the evening of 21st February, 1936, a large trawler was seen to have gone ashore at Brims Ness, at the entrance of the aith in which the life- boat house is situated. The motor life-boat herself, however, the Thomas McCunn, was lying at Longhope pier, some eight miles away by sea. She had been out on service already that day, to the Pentland Skerries, and had returned at 3.30 P.M., but owing to the sea running it was impossible to get her back into the boat-house. The maroons were fired, the crew were fetched by car, and only twenty minutes after the wreck had been seen the life-boat cast off. She went out into the Pentland Firth and then west towards Brims Ness, keeping close inshore to avoid a spring flood tide which was running very strongly. The night was excep- tionally dark, with misty rain and squalls of sleet, and a strong south- easterly wind was blowing against the tide, making a rough sea.

The life-boat reached Brims Ness at 9 o'clock, and by the light of her searchlight found the French trawler Neptunia, of Havre, lying on the rocks known as the Tails of Brims. She was nearly parallel with the shore, which was only a few yards off on her star- board side. The wind and sea were on her port beam. She had a heavy list to port and her gunwale amidships was under water. She had launched one of her boats, but it had been stove in and washed away. The coastguards' life-saving rocket apparatus was as- sembled, but near though the wreck was to the shore, it was impossible to rescue her crew from the shore, as the sea on the rocks was so heavy that the men could not be hauled through it with the gear available.

The life-boat could not get alongside the wreck from ahead or astern of her, as rocks ran out at her bow and stern, so the coxswain anchored to windward and veered down on the cable until the life-boat was twenty-five yards from the wreck. The line-throwing gun was then fired, a heavy line passed to the wreck, and her crew told to take it to her bow and ease the life-boat alongside, so that she should not come to the wreck stern first, with the risk of damaging her rudder. But the trawler's crew understood no English.

Instead of helping to get the life-boat alongside, they launched a boat of their own—a 25-ft. boat fitted with air-cases—on the lee side of the wreck, brought her round to the weather side, and made fast the life-boat's rope to one end of her and their own rope to the other end. This boat was then hauled to and from the life-boat five times and the trawler's big crew of forty-one men were all rescued. The ship's boat was then cut adrift and the life-boat arrived at Long- hope pier again at 11.15 P.M. This was the life-boat's third service in sixty hours.

It was a service in which the life- boat was skilfully and courageously handled, in conditions made the more difficult by the intense darkness. The searchlight was in use the whole time.

To COXSWAIN WILLIAM DASS the Institution has awarded its bronze medal and a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum and framed.

To the coxswain and each member of the crew it has made an award of £1 in addition to the usual money awards on the standard scale, making an award of £2 17s. Qd. to each man. The total awards paid amounted to £22 12s..