Bembridge, Isle of Wight.—At 8.37 on the morning of the 28th of August, 1956, the Foreland coastguard tele- phoned that the Newport police had reported that a man had swum ashore at Woodside and that another man had been left clinging to a capsized dinghy a mile and a half from the shore.

At 8.45 the life-boat Jesse Lumb was launched. There was a slight sea and a gentle westerly breeze. The tide was ebbing. At 9.53 information was received that two naval ratings had taken the dinghy from Ryde in an attempt to reach the mainland. After it had capsized in the early hours of the morning, a helicopter had carried out an extensive search but had found no trace either of the dinghy or of the man reported clinging to her. Later a message was received that the missing craft was a canoe and not a dinghy.

The life-boat found a waterlogged canoe at the entrance to Wooton Creek, but there was nobody in it or clinging to it. After an extensive search in co-operation with a helicopter the life- boat returned with the canoe to her station, arriving there at 12.45.— Rewards to the crew, £9 16s.; rewards to the helpers on shore, £3 5*..