LIFE-BOAT AND SPEED BOAT PUT OUT TO CANOEISTS Clacton-on-Sea, Essex. At 3.40 on the afternoon of the 26th June, 1962, the coastguard informed the honorary secretary that an inflatable canoe was drifting out to sea off Jaywick. The life-boat Sir Godfrey Baring was launched at 3.48 in a gentle northnorth- westerly wind and a choppy sea.

The tide was half flood. The canoe, which had a young man and a girl on board, capsized about seventy yards from the beach. The young man was able to hold the girl up for a time, but he eventually lost his grip and she drifted away. Several attempts were made by people from the beach to rescue the girl and the man, but they were all unsuccessful. The young man after a great struggle managed to reach the beach. When the life-boat reached the scene she was followed closely by a speed boat belonging to the winchman at the life-boat station. The winchman spotted the girl near Lion Point, picked her up and then raced back to Clacton, where a doctor was waiting, but the girl was already dead. The life-boat picked up the inflatable canoe and returned to her station, arriving at 4.43..