ON the evening of the 28th March, 1962, the motor vessel Ridunian, which was loaded with 150 tons of grit and gravel, sailed from Alderney for St. Peter Port, Guernsey. A fresh breeze was blowing from the south-south west, the weather was bad, and visibility was poor. The sea was rough with waves reaching a height of some ten feet.

May-day Message The Ridunian passed close to the Corbet rock in order to avoid the worst of the sea, but there she took a sheer to port, and although this was quickly corrected, she struck the Barsier rock at 7.20.

Five minutes later she sent a may-day message. The sea was too rough to lower the ship's boats, and it was decided instead to use an inflatable raft.

This was launched but blew away almost at once, and a second inflatable raft was damaged. It happened that the vessel was transporting a raft which would take ten men, and by 7.35 the whole of the vessel's crew of seven were in the raft.

The Ridunian soon slipped off the rock, and the raft remained within sight of her lights for about twenty minutes. Then the vessel disappeared, and it is probable that she sank at once.

St. Peter Port signal station had received the may-day message, which was passed to the honorary secretary of the St. Peter Port life-boat station, Captain F. Nicolle. Captain Nicolle gave orders for the life-boat to be launched and also told Captain A. D. Jennings, the Alderney harbour master, what had happened. He suggested Captain Jen- nings should launch a suitable boat and set a watch on shore. Captain Jennings drove by car to the west coast of Alderney, but the visibility was too bad for him to see much. He then collected a crew of four other men and told Captain Nicolle that he was launching the Trinity House pilot cutter Burhou.

This was a motor fishing vessel of the seine-net type, 45 feet in length, with a speed of eight knots. She was not fitted with radio.

Could not see Rock The pilot cutter put out at 8.20 and made for the Swinge channel. Captain Jennings brought her close to the Corbet rock, although in fact he could not see the rock. He then set a course to the south to the Clouque rocks, which he sighted at 8.40, and after that began to search to the north-west. His search brought him close to the rocks in poor visibility, and had the pilot cutter struck the rocks, she might well, in the absence of any means of communicating by radio, have been in serious difficul- ties before the St. Peter Port life-boat could have reached her. However, there was a clear danger that the raft would be carried by the tide, which was flowing strongly to the north-east, over the Burhou reefs, where it would have been impossible for the pilot cutter to reach the raft.

Eventually at 9.10 a light was seen.

The pilot cutter came alongside the raft and succeeded in taking off all seven men. On the return journey Captain Jennings had the good fortune to pick up the Corbet rocks in the light of his torch and thereby avoid them. The pilot cutter reached Alderney harbour at 9.45.

Bronze Medal Awarded For this service the bronze medal for gallantry was awarded to Captain A. D. Jennings. Letters of thanks were sent to the other four members of the crew, Mr. A. Johns, Mr. E. Johns, Mr.

F. Venn, and Mr. P. B. Vissian, who all received monetary awards and medal service certificates..