Bridlington RNLI share 80-year-old image of rescue to save cat and nine men

The photo and the story behind was shared on facebook as part of the RNLI 200 celebrations and is a way to showcase the rich coastal history of Bridlington and the organisation.

On this day, March 19, in 1943, the Bridlington RNLI received a message from the Coastguard that distress rockets had been seen at Hornsea approximately 11 miles south of Bridlington.

The message was received at 12.35am and at 1am the motor life-boat ‘Stanhope Smart’ was launched.

It was a cloudy night, but there was some moonlight. As the life-boat cleared the land, the wind and sea increased.

The team had no difficulty in finding the vessel in distress, as two shore searchlights were trained on the boat, and a life-boat reached the distressed individuals at 2.15am.

The rescue was for an old wooden drifter, the S.S.Kernoozer, now being used by contractors to the Air Ministry for putting down and taking up moorings. The vessel had lost a blade of its propeller, the engine had stopped, and the boat had anchored. However the anchor was dragging and was taking on water.

The master of the vessel said that he wanted to abandon ship, and the lifeboat went straight alongside. There were nine men on board the Kernoozer, as well as a cat, who joined the men as they jumped into the life-boat. The whole rescue took only a few minutes.

The life-boat arrived back at Bridlington at four in the morning. Later in the morning it was learned that the Kernoozer’s crew were going out to her again in a large fishing boat, to see if she could be towed into Bridlington, and as the weather was still bad it was decided that the life-boat should go with the fishing boat.

Both boats left at ten o’clock, but when they reached the Kernoozer they found that she had gone ashore and was breaking up. The life-boat returned to her station at one in the afternoon.

Visit https://rnli.org/about-us/our-history/2024 for more information about the RNLI 200 events.