Rosslare Harbour, Co. Wexford.—At 3.40 in the afternoon of the 25th of July, 1947, distress signals made by a steam whistle could be heard. In a dense fog the motor life-boat Mabel Marion Thompson was launched at 4.5.

A light south-westerly breeze was blow- ing, with a swell. The life-boat found the tug Minerva, of Rotterdam, aground on the Splaugh Rock. She had been towing a hopper, and when she struck had cast the hopper adrift with her chief engineer on board. The life- boat went alongside the tug, and bumped on the rock herself but without doing any damage. She found that the tug was holed, the water was rising in her engine-room, her fires had been drawn, and she was rolling heavily.

Her master decided to abandon her, and the life-boat rescued him and the two men of his crew, arriving back at her station at eight o'clock that evening.

The hopper was later taken in tow by a fishing boat, but the tug became a total wreck. — Rewards, £5 18s..