Penlee, Cornwall. At eight o'clock on the morning of the 15th August, 1961, the honorary secretary told the coxswain that the life-boat would be needed to land a sick man from the tanker Kent, which was expected to be off Mount's Bay about noon. At eleven o'clock the life-boat Solomon Browne was launched on an ebbing tide.

There was a moderate westerly breeze blowing and the sea was choppy. The life-boat went to Newlyn to embark a doctor and an ambulance crew and then made a rendezvous with the Kent about eight miles south of Penzance.

The sick man was taken aboard the life- boat, which then returned to Newlyn, where the man was landed and taken to hospital. The life-boat returned to her station but could not be rehoused until four o'clock because of the state of the tide..