Wick, Caithness-shire. At 8.30 on the morning of the 9th of January, 1959, the coastguard informed the honorary secretary that a red flare had been seen off Helman Head, and ten minutes later more flares were seen six miles east of Clythness. The life-boat City of Edinburgh was launched at 9.5 in a moderate swell, with a north- easterly wind of nearly gale force blowing and a flood tide. She searched over a wide area but found only some wreckage of the fishery protection cruiser Freya, which had sunk within ten minutes of being hit by a huge sea a mile and a quarter east of Sarclet Head. The Freya had had a crew of nineteen, sixteen of whom had been picked up from a rubber dinghy by the Belgian trawler Saint Jean Berch- man. A search for the three missing men was carried out by ten trawlers, a helicopter and the life-boat, but it was unsuccessful. The life-boat finally reached her station at 2.50. A letter of thanks was received from the Scottish Home Department. Rewards to the crew, £13 10s. ; rewards to the helpers on shore, £1 4s..