MARCH 15TH - 17TH. - LYTHAM-ST.

ANNES, LANCASHIRE. At 9.30 A.M.

information was received from the resident naval officer at Preston, and confirmed by the coastguard, that a vessel was aground, and at 10 A.M. the motor life-boat Dunleary was launched. A moderate S.W. breeze was blowing, with a moderate sea, and the weather was thick. At 11 A.M. the lifeboat saw the vessel lying on the Horse Bank, south of the Penfold Channel. She was the S.S. Empire Bridge, with a crew of twelve, and she had run aground during a fog, while bound with china clay from Cornwall to Preston. Her master expected that she would refloat on the evening tide and asked if the life-boat would return and stand by him then. This she promised to do, put back to her station where she arrived at 2 P.M., refuelled and left again at 3.30 P.M., taking a pilot with her. She passed a cable to the steamer and tried to tow her off, but without success, so she returned to herstation again, arriving at 9 P.M. On the following day it was arranged that the lifeboat should go out for the third time at 6.30 in the morning of the 17th, by which time a tug would have arrived from Preston.

This was done. The life-boat passed the tug’s hawser to the steamer and helped to tow her off, and finally returned to her station at 11 in the morning of the 17th.- Property salvage case..