Some trawlers were reported during the week as missing from Brixham, but in course of time anxiety on their account was removed, and they either reached home or news of their safety was received from other ports to which they had run for shelter. Some Plymouth trawlers were also in difficulties, and it was feared that they had been wrecked, but in a few days their whereabouts was ascertained, and it was discovered that they had escaped with somewhat severe damage.
Start Point was on Monday night and again on the succeeding Tuesday a scene of some heartrending disasters. Many vessels, including the iron steamer _Marana_, 1,682 tons register, belonging to Messrs. George Bell and Co. of Liverpool; and the full-rigged ship _Dryad_, 1,035 tons register, owned by J. B. Walmsley, of Water Street, Liverpool, were totally wrecked within a short distance of each other, resulting, it is calculated, in an aggregate loss of over fifty lives. The _Marana_ left Victoria Dock, London, at 11 A.M. on Sunday, March 1st, with a crew of twenty-eight. She was bound for Colombo with a cargo of sleepers, but was proceeding first to Swansea for coal. Whilst going down Channel on Monday night she encountered the gale which, charged with blinding snow, was blowing heavily from the S.E., and struck on the Blackstone Rock, at Start Point. Seeing that the vessel must go to pieces very shortly, the officers and crew took to the boats, most of them having life-belts on. The starboard lifeboat, in charge of the boatswain and with twenty-two men on board, proceeded in the direction of Prawle Point, and was almost immediately followed by a smaller boat in which were the captain, the chief engineer, the mess-room steward, and three seamen. The latter boat was soon separated from the lifeboat, and was never seen again. The lifeboat got under the coastguard station at Prawle, but the appearance of the coast was threatening, and the crew pushed off again. Almost immediately a sea struck the boat and capsized her. A bitter struggle for life on the part of the twenty immersed seamen succeeded, and those who had clung to the boat managed to get her righted, and clambered on board, but soon after she was again turned over. Once more she righted, and eventually drifted on to the Mal Rock to the east of Prawle Point, where the four occupants--all that remained of the crew of the vessel--contrived to get on to the rocks.