Cromer, Norfolk.—At 11.22 -on the night of the 10th of September, 1948, the coastguard reported that the Humber Radio Station had inter- cepted a message from the French motor trawler Georges Langanay, of Fe'camp. She was on the Haisborough Sands and her crew of nineteen were about to abandon ship. The No. 1 motor life-boat Henry Blogg was launched at 11.40 in a light south- south-west wind and a calm sea. She reached the trawler at 1.40 next morning and found her aground one and a half miles east by. south of. the Middle' Haisborough Buoy. Her en- gine-room was flooded, but her crew still aboard. A tug arrived and the life-boat piloted her across the sands and passed a rope from her to the trawler, but it parted. At six that morning the tug went to Yarmouth to fetch pumps, and the life-boat put them aboard the trawler, but they were unable to cope with the water.

If the wind got up the position of the trawler would soon be desperate, so a call by radio telephone was sent to the coxswain of the No. 2 motor life-boat Harriot Dixon for the help of National Fire Service pumps, and at 7.10 in the evening the Harriot Dixon was launched with two pumps on board, three mem- bers of the Fire Service, and the honorary secretary of the life-boat station, Major Peter Hansell. She reached the sands at 10 o'clock and the pumping was so successful that about 2.30 in the morn- ing of the 12th, the tug was able to move the trawler. An hour later the Harriot Dixon left for her station, after transferring Major Hansell to the Henry Blogg. Several times the tow parted, but by the combined efforts of the life-boat and tug the trawler was got clear of the sands about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. The tug then took her in tow and made for Yarmouth.

On the way the trawler's boat broke adrift. The life-boat recovered it, but it broke adrift again and sank. The wind was freshening from the south, but at 7.30 that evening the three vessels arrived off Yarmouth. A fresh breeze was now blowing, and the tug had great difficulty in getting .the trawler into harbour, but with the help of the life-boat, which hung on to the ' trawler's stern, she accomplished it at 9 o'clock that night, the 12th of Sep- tember. The Harriot Dixon arrived back at her station at 5.50 in the morn- ing of the 12th of September and the Henry Blogg returned from Yarmouth on the afternoon of the 14th.—• Property Salvage Case..