At 9.24 p.m. on 20th August, 1965, the coastguard reported that a young man had been cut off by the tide at Whitby Hight light and that the lifesaving apparatus team were proceeding with cliff rescue gear. The honorary secretary alerted the life-boat coxswain and offered to launch the life-boat with a small boat should it be required.

At 9.55 the coastguard reported that they could not carry out the rescue and asked for the small boat. The lifeboat Mary Ann Hepworth was launched at 10.14 in a moderate south-southwesterly wind and a slight sea. A light was seen on the rocks at the base of 150- foot cliffs. The small boat manned by four of the life-boat crew went ashore and a fifteen-year-old boy and a coastguard who had been lowered down the cliff to assist were taken out to the life-boat at 10.38. The life-boat reached her station at 11.5 p.m..