TRAWLER BREAKS FROM MOORINGS IN STRONG GALE Rosslare Harbour, Co. Wexford. At 1.5 on the afternoon of the 5th February, 1963, Ilfracombe radio station informed the honorary secretary that the principal keeper of the Tuskar Rock lighthouse had seen a trawler fire a flare or a rocket two and a half miles south-east of the lighthouse. At 1.25 the life-boat Doug/ax Hyde left her moorings in a strong south-south-easterly gale and a rough sea. The tide was half flood. After a very rough passage the life-boat reached the trawler Achroite of Mull at 2.45 and found her making little headway because of lack of steam. The trawler asked to be escorted to Rosslare Harbour for shelter. This was done and the trawler and the life-boat reached Rosslare Harbour at four o'clock, when the trawler was moored alongside the quay.

The life-boat reached her moorings at 4.45.

An hour later the life-boat crew had just secured the boarding boat when they noticed that the trawler had broken her mooring cables in the gale and was drifting towards the mail steamer St. David and Rosslare Bay. The crew of the trawler were on board, and it was known that there was no steam power.

The life-boat crew put out in the boarding boat, but before they reached the life-boat the trawler fouled the stern haul-off wire of the mail steamer and was held. The life-boat crew did not board the life-boat but made for the pier, where they helped to pull the trawler free from the steamer and back to the quay wall. This operation lasted nearly three hours in the storm conditions.

The boarding boat was finally secured at 8.30. Later the trawler again broke free, this time with no crew on board, and went aground in Rosslare Bay..