Appledore, Devon.—At 1.5 on the afternoon of the 6th of December, 1954, the coxswain reported that the barges Julia Pile and Nellie Ann, of Barnstaple, which each had a crew of two, had got into difficulties off Crow Point while collecting gravel, and had burnt flares. At 1.15 the life-boat Violet Armstrong put out in a rough sea, with a strong westerly breeze blowing, and made for the position in a flooding tide. She found that the Julia Pile had dragged her anchor, had fouled the Nellie Ann, and had sunk.

The two men on board had jumped on to the Nellie Ann. The life-boat rescued them, and the Nellie Ann then tried to make headway, but her en- gines stopped. The life-boat rescued her crew as well, beached her at Appledore, and reached her station again at 2.20.—Rewards, £6 11s..