BRONZE MEDAL SERVICE AT DUNMORE EAST FEBRUARY 28TH and MARCH 1ST.- DUNMORE EAST, CO. WATERFORD.

At 11.15 in the morning of the 28th the motor life-boat C. & S., of Dunmore East, was launched to the help of the Belgian motor trawler Ibis.

A gale from the south-south-west had been blowing the night before, with a very heavy sea. When the lifeboat put out, the gale had dropped to a strong breeze, but a heavy ground sea was running. There was a sea mist.

The Ibis had been caught by the gale on a lee shore, and had dropped three anchors, but they had dragged, and she had been carried upwards of seven miles, with her anchors down.

When the life-boat reached her at one o’clock she was only two hundred yards from the rocky shore, and the seas were breaking right over her.

Not only was she in a place of extreme peril for herself, but in a place where it was most difficult for the life-boat to get near her.

She was close to Green Island, a large rock surrounded by many smaller rocks, and she was sheering wildly on her cables. It was only possible for the life-boat to approach her from the weather side, and as her trawl boards were hanging over her weather quarter, and one of her cables was over her weather bows, the only part of her approachable was amidships.

Among those rocks, in those seas, and with the trawler sheering so violently, the life-boat could not approach her direct. The second-coxswain, who was at the wheel, ran her towards the beach, turned her and came up to the trawler’s weather side from astern of her. He brought the life-boat alongside amidships, held her there for so long as it took a man to jump, and then sheered off to save the life-boat from being caught under the trawler’s cable. Five times altogether he carried out this manoeuvre until all seven of the trawler’s crew had jumped into the life-boat. Then he brought her out again and reached Dunmore East, with the rescued men, at 2.40 in the afternoon.

The second-coxswain, who was atthe wheel the whole of the time, handled the life-boat with courage and fine seamanship, and the Institution made the following awards : To SECOND-COXSWAIN PATRICK POWER, the bronze medal for gallantry, with a copy of the vote inscribed on vellum ; To the coxswain, second-coxswain and each member of the crew, a reward of £1 in addition to the ordinary scale reward of 19s .

Standard rewards to crew, £6 17s. 6d. ; additional rewards to crew, £8 ; total rewards, £14 17s. 6d.

After the rescued men had been landed the life-boat put out again in an attempt to save the vessel. At the same time it had been arranged for a Waterford dredger to go to the Ibis, but the dredger did not arrive, and the life-boat returned at 8.15 that evening.

Next morning, the 1st of March, she left again at 9.15, and with her help a steam trawler took the Ibis in tow after her anchor chains had been cut. The life-boat returned to her station at 8.45 that evening, and at the same time the trawler towed the Ibis into Dunmore East harbour.- Property salvage case.