SEPTEMBER 7TH. - BLYTH, NORTHUMBERLAND.

At about 11.30 at night the coastguard asked the life-boat to go to the help of a balloon drifter which was ashore in Blyth Bay about half a mile S.S.W. of Blyth piers. The night was dark, but clear.

A moderate easterly wind was blowing and a swell was breaking on the beach. The motor life-boat Joseph Adlam left at 11.47 P .M ., and at midnight found H.M.

Balloon Drifter Marcia. It was low water and the Marcia was rolling heavily, with seas breaking over her stern. A tug arrived, and with the help of the life-boat and her line-throwing gun, a tow rope was fixed between the Marcia and the tug, which then tried to get her off, but the tow rope parted.

A fishing yawl now serving with the R.A.F. arrived, with a naval commander on hoard, and he asked the life-boat to take a towrope from his yawl to the Marcia. This the life-boat tried to do, but the rope was not long enough, and the yawl would not come in any closer. While this attempt was being made the tug’s tow rope was accidentally slipped from the Marcia, and the officer on the yawl then asked the coxswain to try to take off the Marcia’s crew.

The life-boat anchored to seaward and veered down on her cable, and the coxswain took her alongside the Marcia. Here the water was so shallow that the life-boat kept striking the sandy bottom, and the coxswain had to be very careful that he did not go right aground and get washed up on the beach. He had also closely to watch the Marcia, as she rolled in the surf, lest she rolled over on to the life-boat, and there was the added difficulty that he could not use his searchlight, as there was an air-raid in progress on the Tyneside six miles to the south. In spite of these difficulties he held the life-boat alongside for a quarter of an hour and in that time the seven members of the Marcia’s crew jumped aboard. The life-boat then weighed anchor and returned to her station, where she arrived at 3.50 in the morning.

The coxswain had handled the life-boat very well, and the Institution made the following awards : To COXSWAIN JOSIAH WHEATLEY, the Institution’s thanks inscribed on vellum ; To the coxswain and each of the eight members of the crew a reward of £1 in addition to the usual money reward on the standard scale ; Standard rewards to crew and helpers, £11 18s. ; additional rewards to crew, £9 ; total rewards, £20 18s..