On the evening of 30 December 1978, the freezer trawler Ben Asdale was off-loading fish into the hold of the Russian factory ship Antarktika (Антарктика), which was anchored in Falmouth Bay.

When the Ben Asdale had finished discharging her cargo of mackerel, she cast off her stern rope in preparation to move away from the anchored Antarktika.

With the wind now gusting force ten and the waves breaking over the trawler, she was out of control, and soon piled onto the rocks at the bottom of Newporth Head.

By now, word of the trawler's troubles had spread, and the three Billcliffe brothers, who owned the Crag Hotel by the beach, rushed to the scene and waded into the surf and during that night dragged three of the crew to safety.

In the end eleven people were saved, but in spite of all the efforts of the emergency services and the Billicliffe brothers, three men (two Britons and a Russian) were drowned, their bodies washed up the next day on Maenporth Beach.