BARGE FOUND AWASH AND TAKEN IN TOW Southend-on-Sea, Essex. At 9.24 on the evening of the 16th October, 1962, the coastguard informed the coxswain that the barge Adieu, with a man and a woman on board, was aground north of the south-east Maplin buoy. She had four and a half feet of water in her engine room. The life-boat Greater London II (Civil Service No. 30) was launched in a light south-easterly breeze and a smooth sea. The tide was flooding.

The life-boat found the barge and waited until she had refloated and then took her in tow to Southend. The life-boat reached her station at 2.55. The owner made a gift to the life-boat crew and a donation to branch funds..