DECEMBER 13TH - 14TH. - DUNMORE, EAST, CO. WATERFORD, AND KILMORE, CO. WEXFORD. Just before half-past five in the evening the coast watcher at Hook Point telephoned to the Dunmore East station that a vessel was off the Hook showing flares. The honorary secretary was about to call out the crew when he saw a steamer coming round Hook Point and asked her by morse if she had seen any vessel in distress. The reply was no, and the honorary secretary decided not to send out the lifeboat.

At 9.15 another telephone message came to say that the vessel was still there, and the motor life-boat Annie Blanche Smith was launched at 10.15. A gale was blowing from the S.S.W., with a very heavy sea. The life-boat searched for some hours, but found no sign of the vessel in distress and returned to her station at three in the morning.

Meanwhile the Kilmore station had received at eight in the evening a telephone message from the life-saving service that a ship was in distress 4 1/2 miles S.E. of theHook. Other messages came confirming this. The sea was coming right into the harbour, and up the slipway, and it was impossible to launch the life-boat, but the crew stood by. They stood by all night, and at 7.50 the next morning, as day was breaking, the motor life-boat Ann Isabella Pyemont was launched with great difficulty.

The Dunmore East lifeboat was also launched again at daybreak, and the two life-boats found the vessel in distress at the same time a mile south of Baginbun Head.

She was the Admiralty trawler Moray, and the tug Empire Ned was standing by. The Dunmore East life-boat returned to her station, where she arrived again at 12.5 in the afternoon, leaving the Kilmore life-boat to give what help was needed.

The trawler by this time had weighed her anchor, and was trying to unshackle the wire from it, so that she could pass it to the tug for towing. The tug tried twice to get a heaving line on board the trawler but failed.

The life-boat then passed the line for her, but the trawler was still trying to get her wire unshackled, and after about twenty minutes the heaving line parted. Again the life-boat got the line on board the trawler, but this time it fouled the tug’s propeller. All this time the vessels were drifting towards Ingard Point, and the life-boat coxswain then warned the trawler that she was getting into shallow and dangerous water. The tug then asked for the help of a man with local knowledge, and the life-boat put her secondcoxswain on board. At last the trawler got her wire unshackled from the anchor ; another line was passed to her by the lifeboat ; the trawler’s wire was hauled on board the tug and shackled to her hawser ; and the tug began to tow. The trawler by this time was dangerously near the rocks, and the towing had started only just in time to save her. The life-boat stood by until the tug and trawler were well clear of Baginbun Head, and then, at the tug’s request, went to Kilmore with a message for a pilot to be ready at Dunmore East to meet them as they came in. She returned to her station at two in the afternoon.

At 3.15, when the tug and trawler were seen to be coming into harbour at Dunmore East, the Dunmore East life-boat put off for a third time with a pilot on board. She went ahead of the tug until they were in sufficient shelter for it to be possible to put the pilot aboard. The weather was so bad that the life-boat, on arriving at Passage East at 6.30 in the evening, remained there for the night, returning to her moorings at Dunmore East next morning.

The Institution awarded its thanks inscribed on vellum to COXSWAIN WILLIAM BLAKE, of Kilmore. No money awards were made to the Kilmore coxswain and crew as they were paid salvage by the owners of the Moray.

Rewards to Dunmore East, £13 2s. 6d., £5 14s., and £13 4s. 6d.