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The Danish Fishing Vessel Bent Erik

APRIL 6TH. - BUCKIE, BANFFSHIRE.

About 4.30 in the afternoon the coastguard telephoned that a vessel was a shore at Covesea Skerries and a few minutes later reported that she was firing red lights. At five o’clock the motor life-boat K.B.M. was launched in a westerly wind, with a choppy sea, and, at 7.20, found the Danish fishing vessel Bent Erik on the rocks. She had five aboard. Her skipper came off her in a Carley float, and then, as the water was too shallow for the life-boat to get close alongside, two of the crew of four came off in a small boat. At the skipper’s request the life-boat towed this boat to windward so that, with the two men on board, it could blow down to the Bent Erik, and they could rescue the other two men. It was lost to view. The life-boat made a long search, but could not find it. As the tide rose she was able to go near enough to the Bent Erik to rescue the two men still aboard by life-buoy and ropes. The two men in the small boat were picked up about thirty-five hours later by another Danish boat, five miles off Peterhead. The life-boat, which had been slightly damaged, reached her station again at two o’clock next morning. - Rewards, £8 8s. 9d. (See Lossiemouth, “Services by Shore-boats,” page 73.).