DECEMBER 12TH. - BALLYCOTTON, CO. CORK. During the evening a strong southerly gale was blowing, with a very heavy sea, and a pilot launch and a port control launch, both of Cork, were swamped and sunk in Cork Harbour when on their way to put a pilot and an examiner on a ship at the harbour mouth. Five lives were lost, and the news of the sinking was brought by one man from the pilot launch who swam ashore. It was then 8.30 in the evening, and the launches had sunk two hours before.

The news reached the Ballycotton life-boat station, through the Civic Guard, at 9.20 P.M., and the life-boat coxswain doubted the usefulness of sending out the life-boat as she would have nearly twenty miles to travel, and in that weather she could not reach the scene until after midnight, nearly six hours since the launches had sunk. But the coxswain was told that the life-boat was wanted, and the motor life-boat Mary Stanford put out at 10 P.M. The night was very dark, with squalls of rain and lightning, and the coxswain described it as one of the worstsoutherly gales in his experience. In addition to the severe weather there was the danger of mines. Going round Ballycotton Lighthouse the coxswain had to keep about four miles off the land owing to the breaking seas, and the life-boat shipped several heavy seas.

She reached Cork Harbour at 12.40, and by the light of her own searchlight, and searchlights from the forts, she searched for the launches, but found nothing except pieces of wreckage, and went on to Queenstown, where she arrived at 3 A.M. on the 13th. The weather was so bad that she was unable to return to her station for two days.

She left Queenstown at 9.10 in the morning of the 15th and reached Ballycotton at 12.30 that afternoon. There she went alongside the steam trawler Dereske, of Milford Haven. Two hours before, the trawler had signalled to the shore that she was without water. Her captain now told the coxswain that they had been without fresh water for eight days, as salt water had got into the tanks, that they were melting ice both for cooking and drinking, and that several of the crew were covered with boils due to the chemicals in the ice water. He also said that he could not bring the vessel into the harbour as the authorities would not give him permission. The life-boat went to her station and the honorary secretary rang up the customs officer at Queenstown and got permission. The life-boat then returned to the trawler and put one of her crew on board, and the trawler, with the life-boat in attendance, came into harbour under her own steam. The life-boat then returned to her station, arriving at 3.30 in the afternoon.

It had been a long and arduous journey, and the Institution gave a reward of 30s. to each member of the crew in addition to the ordinary rewards: on the standard scale for the two services of £4 15s. 6d., making a total reward to each man of £6 5s. ; rewards on the standard scale and other payments, £41 10s. 6d. ; additional rewards, £12 ; total rewards and other payments, £53 10s. 6d..