Penlee, Cornwall. At one o'clock on the afternoon of the 12th December, 1961, the port medical officer informed the honorary secretary that a seventeen- year-old apprentice on board the tanker Border Falcon of Newcastle was ill and needed a doctor. The tanker was due to arrive in Mounts Bay at five o'clock, and the medical officer asked for the help of the life-boat. At three o'clock he informed the honorary secretary that the Border Falcon would be four miles south of Penzance at 5.30, and at 4.30 the life-boat Solomon Browne was launched in dense fog. There was a mod- erate south-westerly wind and a rough sea. The tide was half ebb. The life- boat made for Newlyn to embark a doctor and an ambulance crew. She arrived alongside the tanker at 5.30, and the sick man was lowered into the life- boat. He was landed at Newlyn at 6.45, but because of the weather the life-boat did not return to Penlee until the next day..