JANUARY 29TH. - SELSEY, SUSSEX.

At 4.30 A.M. the coastguard telephoned that a vessel was in distress off the coastguard station and needed a tug. The coxswain assembled the life-boat crew and stood by.

Then a second message came from the coastguard asking that the life-boat should go to the vessel’s help, and the motor life-boat Canadian Pacific put out at 7 A.M. A strong north-east to east breeze was blowing with a slight sea. It was snowing heavily. The life-boat reached the vessel at 11.30 A.M.

and found her to be the naval trawler Stella Sirus, aground near the Mixon Rocks. An Admiralty tug had arrived, but the water was too shallow for either the tug or the lifeboat to get near the trawler. They waited for the tide to rise. The life-boat then went alongside the trawler and got a rope from her to the tug. At 2 P.M. the tug succeeded in refloating the trawler, and the life-boat returned to her station. She arrived and was moored at 4.30 in the afternoon, but, in the the driving snow and growing darkness, the crew could see neither the life-boat house nor the shore, and in the sea which was running it was impossible for a shore-boat to put out to land the crew, so they remained on board, at moorings, until 8.30 next morning. - Rewards, £32 11s..