TWO MEN SAVED FROM CLUB'S RESCUE BOAT Hastings, Sussex. At 1.35 on the afternoon of the 20th May, 1962, the police informed the honorary secretary that the Hastings and St. Leonards sailing club's rescue boat Anne Bonaventure was in difficulties under the pier.

At 1.48 the life-boat M.T.C. was launched in a strong south-westerly wind and a slight sea. It was two hours after high water. On reaching the pier the life-boat found the Anne Bonaventure, which had a crew of two, trapped between the piles of the pier with a rope foul of her propeller. The coxswain let go the anchor and tried to veer down on to the rescue boat in order to pass a tow line, but because of the ebbing tide, the heavy swell and the horizontal girders of the pier, several attempts to carry out this manoeuvre were all unsuccessful. In the meantime the second coxswain had swum across to the Anne Bonaventure to help her crew make fast the tow line if it could be successfully passed. When it became clear that the rescue boat could not be taken in tow, a small line was passed to her and her crew of two and the second coxswain were hauled into the life-boat, which then landed the two rescued men. The life-boat returned to the pier later, when she was able to take the Anne Bonaventure in tow to the beach. The life-boat finally reached her station at 3.30..