BOAT FOUND AFTER DRIFTING ALL NIGHT Ilfracombe, Devon. At 7.55 on the morning of the 2nd September, 1962, the police told the honorary secretary that the proprietor of the Lee Bay Hotel had reported that three of his staff and a visitor had left in a rowing boat at ten o'clock the night before for a short fishing trip but had not returned.

The honorary secretary asked the coastguard for air assistance, and at 8.30 the life-boat Robert and Phemia Brown was launched. There was a light southeasterly breeze and a choppy sea, and it was high water. A helicopter spotted the small rowing boat about three miles north-west of Torrs Point. The boat had been carried out in the channel by an off-shoie wind and an ebbing tide and had been adrift all night. The helicopter rescued three men, and the fourth man, who had been at the oars throughout and was very exhausted, was taken aboard the life-boat. After being given first aid he was brought ashore at Ilfracombe, where the rowing boat was beached. The three men picked up by the helicopter were landed at Lee, and the life-boat finally reached her station at 10.20..