Three stranded men HM COASTGUARD informed the honorary secretary of Torbay lifeboat station at 1050 on Tuesday August 14, 1979, that three men were stranded on rocks at Southdown Cliff, two miles south of Berry Head, and that it looked as though it would be safer to take them off by sea rather than attempting to haul them up the cliff face.

At 1103 Torbay lifeboat, the 54ft Arun Edward Bridges (Civil Service and Post Office No. 37), slipped from her mooring and set out with Coxswain Arthur Curnow in command. There was a gale, force 8, gusting to strong gale, force 9, blowing from the south west. Visibility was good and the tide was in the last hour of flood.

Edward Bridges arrived off Southdown Cliff at 1115 and found a six foot swell breaking over the rocks and boulders along the shoreline where the three men were stranded. Coxswain Curnow decided to send in the lifeboat's Y class 10ft 6in inflatable dinghy manned by Acting Assistant Mechanic Brian Gaunter and Crew Member Michael Kingston.

The Arun was stopped half a cable off shore, in about ten feet of water, and the inflatable dinghy was veered down on a 200-fathom one-inch nylon line which is kept on board for this purpose.

Brian Gaunter used the dinghy's outboard engine to manoeuvre into a gully while Michael Kingston lay across the bows to prevent a capsize and eventually to grasp the rocks while two of the men were taken aboard.

Breaking waves had filled the dinghy with water. Coming out under power, her propeller struck a rock, shearing its drive pin, but she was hauled back to the lifeboat on her nylon safety line and the two men were taken on board.

Coxswain Curnow now took the lifeboat as close as he dared to a shallow area to the south to get as neardirectly up wind as he could of the third man, still stranded on the rocks. The inflatable dinghy was again veered down, this time using paddles for manoeuvring and leaving the disabled engine tilted up. The remaining man was on an overhang of rock and he jumped into the dinghy as she rose on a swell.

No sooner had the man jumped into the swamped dinghy than she grounded on a pinnacle of rock with waves and spray breaking over her. Realising the dinghy's predicament, Coxswain Curnow quickly made fast the nylon line on the bows of the lifeboat and went very slowly astern, pulling the dinghy clear.

When she was only about 25 feet clear of the rocks, however, the line pulled away from the inflatable dinghy, which was blown rapidly back towards the rocks.

While the crew tried to slow down their drift, first by rowing and then by paddling, Coxswain Curnow took Edward Bridges ahead again until the re-coiled nylon line could be dropped down into the dinghy, by which time the lifeboat could have had no more than two feet under her keel in the troughs of the swells. This time, the dinghy crew held on to the line while the lifeboat again went slowly astern and towed them into deeper water where all were safely taken aboard, although the dinghy's crew were bruised by the buffeting they had experienced among the rocks. The time was 1148 and the complete rescue had taken 33 minutes. The lifeboat returned to station at 1200.

For this service framed letters of thanks signed by the Duke of Atholl, chairman of the Institution, were presented to Coxswain Arthur Curnow, Acting Assistant Mechanic Brian Gaunter and Crew Member Michael Kingston..