AT 5.30 on the morning of the 15th of January, 1953, the coastguard told the honorary secretary of the Thurso life- boat station that the steam trawler Sunlight was reported ashore on Holborn Head and in need of immed- iate help.

The life-boat H.C.J. was launched at 5.50 and searched along the coast to Holborn Head and beyond to Spear Head without sighting anything. From Spear Head the coxswain could see the whole coastline to Brims Ness, and as no flares were visible he decided that the trawler must be to the east-ward.

When the life-boat was again off Holborn Head the trawler Loch Park reported by radio telephony that she was close to the Sunlight. She gave the life-boat a course, and some fifteen minutes later the coxswain found the Sunlight on the Spur of Murkle in Thurso Bay.

A moderate westerly gale was blow- ing, the sea was rough, and there was a strong flood tide.

The Sunlight had run aground 200 yards from the shore. Rocks on the Spur of Murkle consist of long ledges running out to sea, covered with large boulders. The Sunlight was aground on one of these ledges in about seven feet of water. Her port rail was awash, and she was pounding with the swell.

The coxswain, Angus S. Macintosh, D.S.M., thought he would have to take the crew off by breeches buoy. But he soon realised that the trawler was on the edge of a ledge and might at any moment slip off and capsize. He therefore decided to go alongside at once. This he did by putting his bow to the lee quarter of the Sunlight and getting a line aboard. With its help he came alongside, head to sea.

The crew of the trawler quickly scrambled aboard the life-boat by way of the trawler's gallows, and they were all clear by 7.10. The operation took only five minutes. The trawler be- came a total loss.

In recognition of his services in carrying out this quick and efficient rescue in difficult and dangerous con- ditions, without damage to the life- boat, the Institution awarded its Thanks on Vellum to Coxswain Angus S. Macintosh.

To him and each of the other seven members of the crew it awarded £2 in addition to the rewards on the ordinary scale of £l 10s. per man. Scale rewards, £13 19*.; extra rewards, £16.

Total rewards, £29 19*..