LIFEBOAT MAGAZINE ARCHIVE

Advanced search

Mim

Nov. 1ST. - STROMNESS, ORKNEYS. At 10.40 P.M. a message was received from the Kirkwall coastguard that a vessel was ashore at North Ronaldshay, sixty miles away. A fresh south-easterly wind was blowing, with a rough sea. At 11.15 P.M. the motor lifeboat J.J.K.S.W. was launched, and at seven next morning she found the Norwegian steamer Mim, of Tonsberg, ashore on Dyke Reef, badly damaged. The steamer was bound from Fremantle, Australia, to Bergen, and was on her way to the Kirkwall Contraband Base in the Orkneys, for examination.

Before the life-boat arrived eleven men had been rescued by a local boat and had been landed at North Ronaldshay. The life-boat went alongside and took off the remaining twenty-two members of the crew. In making the rescue the local boat had been damaged and had to be beached, and the life-boat took the eleven men she had rescued on board andwent to Kirkwall where the whole crew were landed at 2.40 P.M.

The life-boat had then been out for sixteen hours. She returned to her station next day, 3rd November, arriving at 2.45 P.M. This was a fine piece of work by the life-boat crew for they had made their sixty miles journey at night, through dangerup ous waters without lights. A donation was received in appreciation of this service and the Institution made an increase in the usual money award of £l on the standard scale to each member of the crew. - Standard rewards, £29 11s. 6d. ; additional rewards, £8 : total rewards, £37 11s. 3d..