| Hattle |
27-10-2013 12:36 AM |
Just after midnight on Saturday, 20 December 1925 the Amble was lying at anchor just outside the pier. She was in ballast having just returned from the Danish port of Kalundburg. The weather was blowing a gale and it was snowing heavily when her cable parted and she was blown over the bay and ran onto rocks off Alnmouth. According to later reports, both the Boulmer lifeboat, the Arthur R Dawes, and the Alnmouth lifeboat, the John and Robert C Mercer put out about 2:30am but because of the weather were unable to lift the crew off. Meanwhile the coastguard brought out the rocket apparatus and when the tide fell and it got lighter they fired a line over the vessel and Captain Lascelles and his 16 men of the crew were hauled ashore. It was feared for a while that because she was so badly battered that she would be broken but she was refloated ten days later. However, she was leaking so badly she had to be run ashore again at Amble for temporary repairs. Because she had lost all the blades of her propellers she was towed to Smiths Dock in North Shields the first week of 1926.
Just as a footnote to the affair. The Evening Telegraph from Angus reported that the Boulmer lifeboat was hauled one and a half miles along the coast by women before it could be launched. The report also said that on Friday 26 February 1926 the Lifeboat Ladies Guild hired coaches to take 35 women from Boulmer to Alnwick for a tea where the Duke presented them with the official thanks of the RNLI on vellum. The ladies also enjoyed a free film show at the Corn Exchange before being bussed back to Boulmer.
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