PILOT TAKEN TO DUTCH VESSEL IN NEAR GALE Criccieth, Caernarvonshire. At eleven o'clock on the morning of the 18th November, 1962, the pilot at Portmadoc rang up the coxswain to say that a coaster had anchored outside the Portmadoc estuary and that he proposed to put off to her by launch. He later reported that rough seas had prevented him from reaching the vessel, and it was agreed that the life-boat would take him out. The pilot went to Criccieth and embarked in the life-boat Robert Lindsay, which was launched at 2.15.

A wind of near gale force was blowing from the north-north-east, the sea was rough, and the tide was ebbing. The life-boat found the motor vessel Maria W. of Rotterdam, with a crew of five.

The vessel had been damaged by the bad weather the night before, and her master had tried to reach the shelter of Tremadoc Bay with the intention of taking his ship to Portmadoc for repairs.

The vessel was in a dangerous position.

The pilot went aboard her, and the lifeboat escorted the vessel to a point off Criccieth Castle, where conditions were not so dangerous. Here the life-boat took two of the vessel's crew ashore to buy provisions and to telephone the ship's agents in Rotterdam. The lifeboat arrived back at her station at 5.15. The next day the Maria W.

reached Portmadoc with the help of the pilot..