MARCH 17TH. - MARGATE, KENT. At 2.58 P.M. a message was received from the Margate coastguard that a vessel was sinking, after an explosion, about two miles S.E. of the Tongue Light-vessel. A moderate southerly breeze was blowing. The sea was smooth. At 3.15 P.M. the motor life-boat The Lord Southborough (Civil Service No. 1) was launched. The weather had become very thick and the coxswain went first to the Tongue Light-vessel for further information.

There was none to give him, and the life-boat began her search. She found wreckage and an empty ship’s boat. She then found the French collier Capitaine Augustin, of Havre, which had been mined, and the minesweeper T.97. which had picked up the collier’s survivors. Among them was the captain, and he asked the life-boat to put him aboard the ship again to get the ship’s papers, but she was too far submerged. The life-boat then returned to the minesweeper and took off twenty-six of the collier’s crew, two of them injured. The captain and mate remained on board the minesweeper to see the last of their own ship, and the life-boat landed the 26 men at Margate and returned to her station at 6 P.M. - Rewards, £14 2s..