OCTOBER 11TH. - APPLEDORE, CLOVELLY, AND ILFRACOMBE, DEVON. At 3.50 in the afternoon the naval officer-incharge at Appledore asked the life-boat to be in readiness to launch. A south-west gale was blowing, with a very rough sea, and visibility was poor. A later message said that naval motor launch 524 was in difficulties owing to engine trouble, and at 4.30 the Appledore motor life-boat Violet Armstrong was launched. The position of the launch had been given as seven miles northwest of Baggy Point. The life-boat found that the launch had been able to go on under her own power and had made Clovelly. The life-boat also made Clovelly, where a convoy was sheltering in the roads. There she was hailed by the S.S. Capito, which asked her to bring a doctor from corvette K59, as she had an injured man. This the life-boat did, but it was only with considerable difficulty that she was able to put him on board the Capito, which had a heavy list to port. It was so heavy that her masts and derricks swept the waters for some distance from her as she changed position in the heavy seas, and the life-boat was damaged. Owing to the severe weather the life-boat remained in Clovelly Roads for the night and returned to her station at 2.30 in the afternoon of the 12th.

At Clovelly the motor life-boat City of Nottingham was called out at 4.30 on the afternoon of the 11th and went to corvette K59, there to await instructions. While she waited, the motor launch 524 arrived, and the life-boat returned to her station, which she reached at 6.30.

At Ilfracombe the life-boat crew were assembled, when it was known that launch 524 was in difficulties, but they were not called upon to launch. - Rewards : Appledore, £27 18s. 3d. ; Clovelly, £19 9s. 6d. ; Ilfracombe, £10 16s. 6d..