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Three Metal Floats (1)

JULY 22ND. - RHYL, FLINTSHIRE, AND NEW BRIGHTON, CHESHIRE. During the afternoon four young men, holiday visitors from Coventry, went out on three metal floats from Prestatyn. The sea was rough and a strong south-westerly wind was blowing.

At 6.50 the Rhyl coastguard telephoned to the Rhyl life-boat station that the floats were drifting to sea, two miles from Ffrith Beach, and at 7.10 the motor life-boat The Gordon Warren was launched. At 8.45 the Hoylake coastguard informed the New Brighton lifeboat station that the floats were drifting to the north-east and were now seven miles north-east of Rhyl, and the No. 2 motor lifeboat Edmund and Mary Robinson was launched at 9.15 to join in the search.

Aeroplanes were also taking: part in it. Lifeboats and aeroplanes carefully searched a wide area, but could not find the men. The Rhyl life-boat returned to her station at 10.25 that night and the New Brighton lifeboat at 7.43 next morning. She brought with her one of the floats which she had picked up about five o’clock.

At 5.40 that morning, the 23rd, the Rhyl life-boat put out again, but again found nothing and returned to her station at 11.10.

Another of the three floats was picked up by a Liverpool pilot boat about mid-day, and when at 3.25 in the afternoon an aeroplane reported that she had seen the third float, the New Brighton No. 2 life-boat again put out at 3.30. She found the float two miles north-east of Deposit Buoy and brought it ashore at 7.30 that evening. She had found no trace of the four young men. - Rewards : Rhyl, first service, £10 ; second service, £18 18s. : New Brighton, first service, £17 2s. 6d. ; second service, £6 18s..