Yarmouth, Isle of Wight - At 12.8 p.m. on 3rd August, 1968, the coastguard informed the honorary secretary that the catamaran Pensa had engine trouble 18 miles south of the Needles. The life-boat The Earl and Countess Howe slipped her moorings at 12.31 in a moderate northerly breeze with a corresponding sea.

It was low water. After an extensive search the life-boat found the catamaran, with four people on board, seven miles south of the Needles and took her in tow to Yarmouth.

She returned to her station at 7.25..