MOTOR BOAT AGROUND AT HARBOUR MOUTH Courtmacsherry Harbour, Co. Cork.

At 9.30 on the morning of the 29th September, 1962, the coxswain saw the motor boat Puffin enter the harbour on her return from the fishing grounds to shelter from a gale which was blowing up. The Puffin struck the sandbank at the mouth of the harbour on the leeward side. A strong south-east gale was blowing with a rough sea, and at 1.20 at low water the life-boat Sir Arthur Rose put out. The Puffin had failed to float off the sandbank and had been left broadside on to the weather by the falling tide. The crew had a kedge anchor out, but it was thought that this might not hold when the tide began to flood. The boat might then have been carried further up the bank to a position where the life-boat could not have reached her. The life-boat stood by, but the Puffin refloated with the rising tide, and the life-boat returned to her station, arriving at 3.45..