ON 24th November the ketch Ceres, of Bude, Cornwall, left Swansea for Bude with a cargo of eighty tons of slag.

Her crew was a skipper and a mate.

They intended to go over Bideford Bar for the night, but at nine p.m.

they found water coming into the engine-room. They were then in Croyde Bay, some three miles north of the bar.

They manned the pumps, but the water gained on them. They still hoped to get the ketch over the bar, but she was rolling so badly that they launched their boat in readiness and sent up rockets and flares. When the water was washing the decks they took to the boat and lay in the shelter of the ketch, waiting for the life-boat.

At 9.45 their signals had been seen at Appledore, and at 10.15 the motor life-boat V.C.S. put out. A light breeze was blowing, a moderate sea was running, and there was some fog.

At 11.15 the life-boat arrived. She took the two men on board and circled round the Ceres to see if it were possible to take her in tow, but she was sinking fast. With the ship's boat in tow, she reached Appledore again at a quarter of an hour after midnight. When, day broke there was nothing of the Ceres to be seen.

So has passed away the oldest vessel in service in the British Isles, and probably the oldest in the world. She was built at Salcombe, in 1811, and for 125 years had been engaged in the coastal trade. Thirty-seven years ago the present chief inspector of life-boats, Commander E. D. Drury, R.D., R.N.R., made a short trip on board her. He found her a wonderful sea-boat, but what was even more noticeable about her was the strength of her timbers.

Her obituary has been written in verse by Miss C. Fox Smith in Blue Peter.

These are the last two stanzas :* " But a time it comes to ships and men when sailing days are past, Even such as hail from Devon, where they mostly build to last, And her seams began to open and the Severn tide came through, And the water kept on gaming spite of all that they could do.

i They are quoted by kind permission of the Editor and Miss Fox Smith.

They did their best to beach her, but they couldn't do no more, And she foundered at the finish there in sight of Appledore ; And her bones'11 never flicker blue on any 'longshore fire, For she'll lie there and she'll moulder as an old ship might desire, And hear the vessels passing by, and dream about the past And the great old times in Devon, where they built her once to last..