TWO YOUNG PEOPLE DROWNED Hastings, Sussex. At 12.15 p.m. on Thursday the 19th September, 1963, the coxswain was told by the skipper of the fishing vessel Rose that a small sailing dinghy had apparently capsized and that there was the body of a girl close by.

The fishing boat had tried to recover the body but had been unable to do so, and her skipper had decided to come ashore for the help of the life-boat. The position of the sailing dinghy was then two miles south of the Pett Level coastguard station.

The life-boat M.T.C. was launched at 12.28 in a moderate east-northeasterly breeze and corresponding sea.

It was high water. The life-boat found the dinghy. Seventy yards west of it the body was sighted and picked up. Artificial respiration was given but the girl was already dead. The dinghy was then recovered, and a helicopter which had reached the position picked up the body of a man about 200 yards away. The life-boat returned to her station, arriving at three o'clock. It was later discovered that the dinghy had capsized some time the previous afternoon, throwing the three occupants into the sea. They had put on life-jackets and had drifted throughout the night clinging to the dinghy. By about 4.0 a.m. one of the men had drifted away and at 9.30 a.m. the second man left the dinghy to swim ashore to get help, leaving the girl still clinging to the dinghy. The man, who had been in the water for 19 hours, reached the shore in a state of collapse and raised the alarm..