BY BREECHES BUOY Islay, Inner Hebrides. At 3.17 a.m.

on 8th December, 1963, the coastguard told the honorary secretary that the trawler Margaret Wicks,of Fleetwood, was ashore on the Mull of Oa. There was a fresh south-easterly breeze with a choppy sea. The tide was ebbing. The life-boat The Rankin, on temporary duty at the station, set out at 3.50. At 5.26 the Margaret Wicks reported that the Port Ellen and Mull of Oa life-savingapparatus teams had established contact and that H.M.S.

Hampshire was standing by. The lifeboat kept in touch with the trawler and the Hampshire by radio telephony and by this means learned that all the crew of the trawler had been rescued by breeches buoy. At the request of the master of the Margaret Wicks the life-boat put him and some crew members on board the trawler to assess the damage and the possibility of refloating at high water.

The trawler was unable to refloat and after landing the party at Port Ellen the life-boat returned to her station at four o'clock..