THE LIFE-BOAT The Journal of the Royal National Life-boat Institution VOL. XXXIII SPRING, 1953 No. 364 THE LIFE-BOAT FLEET 154 Motor Life-boats 1 Harbour Pulling Life-boat LIVES RESCUED from the foundation of the Life-boat Service in 1824 to May 31st, 1953 - 78,220 Disaster at Fraserburgh MONDAY the 9th of February, 1953, Two Fishing Boats Escorted In was a fine sunny day at Fraserburgh, Though the swell was very heavy on the coast of Aberdeenshire. A there was a considerable interval light easterly breeze was blowing, between the waves, and several small but there was a very heavy swell. fishing boats, by waiting for the Fraserburgh harbour faces a little "smooths" in the swell, were able to south of east. The swell was from the enter harbour without difficulty. The north-east and was breaking across life-boat escorted in the Evangeline. the harbour mouth. She went out again and escorted in the A number of fishing boats were Good Way. It was then reported to returning to harbour at midday. In the coxswain that the Harvest Reaper that swell the entrance might be was waiting off Kinnaird Head, a dangerous, and it was decided to send little way up the coast. He went out the life-boat to escort them in. out for the third time to find that the The maroon was fired at 12.48. A Harvest Reaper had decided to make few minutes later the boat was for Macduff and was steaming away. launched and the coxswain, who had He put about, and when he reached the just returned in his own boat from north pier, standing out eastwards into fishing, took her out into the bay. the sea, he made a half circle to come Coxswain Andrew Ritchie, a fisher- round the end of it. The life-boat man, had served in the life-boat for now had the heavy swell right astern. twenty years and for seven years had What happened next was told by a been coxswain. The motor mechanic, man watching from the pier-head and G. F. Duthie, had served as the motor by Second-coxswain C. G. Tait, the mechanic of life-boats at Fraserburgh. only man, of the seven on board, who for thirty years. The other five came ashore alive. members of the crew were experienced The life-boat was travelling at full fishermen. The life-boat herself, the speed just off the end of the north John and Charles Kennedy, was a pier, and two to three boat's lengths 46-feet Watson cabin boat with two away from it, when a very heavy swell 40 h.p. diesel engines, built in 1937. lifted her stern, and as it passed under 470 THE LIFE-BOAT [SPRING, 1953 the life-boat it broke alongside her out, but in the shallow water, close to amidships. She ran on this swell for the rocks, where the capsized life-boat two or three boat's lengths. The cox- had drifted, she could do nothing. swain was at the wheel; the assistant motor mechanic was under the canopy Rescuers Waiting at the engine controls; the second- As soon as the life-boat grounded, coxswain had just gone under the the bodies of the five men floated out canopy; the other four men were stand- from under the canopy on a receding ing in the cockpit with the coxswain. sea. Men were waiting on the rocks. They went into the sea and brought A Big Swell Rears Up four bodies ashore. Two doctors were The life-boat had now passed the waiting on the rocks. Ambulances end of the north pier and it is probable were waiting. From the time when that the coxswain was just turning the bodies were recovered until they her to starboard to enter the harbour reached hospital a few minutes later, when a second, and even bigger, swell and again at the hospital, every effort was made to revive them, but they ;reared up astern. It broke right aboard her, not over the stern but were dead. over the starboard quarter. It filled These four men were wearing their the cockpit. It flung all the men life-belts. The fifth man, John Craw- except the coxswain, who was holding ford, was washed out with the others, the wheel, right under the canopy but his life-belt was seen to float off and against the engine-controls. It his body, and he was not recovered filled the canopy. It flung the life- for two days. The belt too was boat's stern round, so that she was recovered, undamaged, but with the now broadside to the swell, and waist-belt unbuckled. It is possible turned her right over. that he had tried to free himself of it The coxswain was thrown clear of in his desperate attempt to escape the boat. He could be seen swimming from under the canopy when the life- strongly towards the harbour. Then boat was on top of him. a piece of wreckage struck him on the head, and he could swim no more. The News Reaches the Institution It was about 2.30 in the afternoon Trapped Under the Canopy that the news of the disaster reached the Institution, and at onoe the The other six men were trapped district inspector (general), Comman- under the canopy with the life-boat der E. W. Middleton, V.R.D., R.N. V.R., on top of them. Only the second- was sent from London to carry out coxswain escaped. He managed to an inquiry, and Mr. S. E. Bartholomew, force himself down in the water suffi- of the Operations Department, with ciently to get out from under the money to supply any immediate needs life-boat and the guard-rails, and rose of the families. The northern district to the surface. He was then ten inspector, Lieutenant E. D. Stogdon, yards to seaward of the boat. He R.N.V.R., the northern district engin- tried to swim to the harbour-entrance eer and the northern assistant surveyor but could not make it. The swell of life-boats were told to go at once carried him southwards across it. A to Fraserburgh. All arrived that night rope was flung to him from the south or early next morning. Mr. R. A. ier. He caught it, but could not Oakley, the surveyor of life-boats, left Eold it. He was carried on south- next day to take charge of the work wards and was washed up alive on the rocks to the south of the harbour. of salving the boat. The capsized boat was also carried southwards, and from twenty to Salving the Life-boat thirty minutes after she capsized she For the next three days an on-shore went ashore on the rocks, about a gale made any work impossible. hundred yards south of the south pier. Through those days the boat lay on As soon as the disaster was known the rocks battered by the seas. On the fishing boat Golden Harvest put the 13th of February the gale moder- SPRING, 1953] THE LIFE-BOAT 471 ated and it was possible to examine GEORGE FLETT DUTHIE (55), the her. The seas and rocks between motor mechanic, who left a wife and them had by then torn away or six children. damaged beyond repair all her super- CHARLES TAIT, senior (61), the structure and upper deck. On the bowman, who left a wife and three same day the difficult work was begun children, one of them Charles Tait, of getting the boat off the rocks. She junior, the second-coxswain, the only was jacked up; launching ways laid; man to come ashore alive. the tops of rocks split off; and on the JAMES NOBLE (32), the assistant morning of Sunday the 15th she was motor mechanic, who left a wife and refloated on the rising tide. Still bot- two children. tom up she was towed into harbour. JOHN CRAWFORD (52), who left a There she was turned right way up, wife and three children. and the fire brigade pumped the water JOHN RALPH BUCHAN (23), who left out of her. a wife and two sons, one born seven She was carefully examined. The weeks after his death. engine-controls were set at full-speed ahead. There was nothing to show any failure of the engines themselves. Nor The Pensions was there sign of any other failure of The Institution pensioned the six material in the boat. To have re- widows, as if the men had been paired her would have cost over sailors, soldiers or airmen, killed in £10,000. The engines, propellers, action, with allowance for six children propeller-shafts, engine-coolers and under the age of sixteen. It gave radio telephone were taken out. What £500 to the Provost of Fraserburgh's was left was handed over to a local fund for the dependents, made an shipbreaker who undertook to break allowance to Second-coxswain Charles it up within a week. Tait for as long as he was incapacitated In her sixteen years the John and by his injuries, and paid all funeral Charles Kennedy went out on service expenses. 98 times and rescued 199 lives. The Institution also sent a letter of thanks to the skipper and crew of An Earlier Disaster the Golden Harvest. Thirty-four years ago, on the 28th of April, 1919, the first motor life-boat to be stationed at Fraserburgh, the Messages of Sympathy Lady Rothe.s, left the harbour in a full The Duchess of Kent telegraphed to gale from the north-north-east.