Hartlepool, Co. Durham. About eight o'clock on the morning of the 7th September, 1961, the second coxswain received a request, while he was fishing to the north of Hartlepool, from a representative of Messrs. Wimpey and Co. to land men from their pontoon.

He decided it would not be safe to do this in his own boat, and he returned to the life-boat station. The honorary secretary immediately authorised the launching of the life-boat, and at 8.45 on the flooding tide the life-boat The Prin- cess Royal (Civil Service No. 7) put out.

There was a fresh northerly breeze with a choppy sea. The life-boat made for a position two miles north of Hartlepool, where she took twenty-two men off the pontoon. The men were landed at Hartlepool, and the life-boat then returned to her station, arriving at 10.15..