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TRIP REPORTS SCILLY ISLES TRIP
On the evening of Friday 21st September 2000 three members of Stortford Divers {including myself}, set off with grossly overweighed dive bags. We arrived at Paddington Station, where we met the other members of the dive party, in the bar. At about eleven thirty we caught the overnight sleeper to Penzance. I still wonder to this day how it ever got the name sleeper. The ferry crossing was more comfortable, and a lot of missed sleep was caught up with. On Sunday morning everyone was at the quay side loading the boat {MV Moon Shadow}, looking forward to six days diving {12 dives}. Below you will find some of the wrecks we dived and a little of the history behind them. Instead of including photo's on this page and making it too long, there is a link to the Scilly Isles photo page at the bottom. Anchor Wreck Unknown Wreck. Estimated date 1700-1800. Very broken, but two very large anchors that are well encrusted. Good dive.
Firebrand At about 20.00hrs on 22nd October 1707, Admiral Sir Clowdisley Shovell and some 1,628 officers and men of the Royal Navy met their deaths, when HMS Association {Flagship}, Eagle, Romney and Firebrand all struck Gilstone Ledge and went down to the ocean depths. In 1967 divers from the Royal Navy Sub Aqua Club located this site. Cannons, coins and several artifacts have since been removed. In 1969, one of the many civilian diving teams located a cannon site in deep water off Tearing Ledge, recovering a large ship's bell bearing a broad arrow mark and the date 1701, as well as a navigational slate and artifacts. Good dive, you can still see a few cannons.
CITA On the 26th March 1997 at 03.30hrs. while everyone on board was
asleep with the ship on automatic pilot, the 3,083 tonnes 90.53m long MV CITA struck the
Newfoundland rocks at Porth Hellick at full speed. With 145 containers for Belfast holding
a mixed cargo worth over £10million, including £1million worth of cigarette tobacco in
bales. Built in Germany in 1977 as the John Wulff, registered at Antigua, changed
ownership and name in 1996, now belonging to a consortium of German dentists trading as
the Martin Shipping Co. Ltd. With the watch officer asleep she continued on course for 24
miles, crossing two major shipping channels then drove ashore, the impact throwing the
crew out of their bunks. The Falmouth MRCC took charge of the situation on receipt of
their Maday signal, alerting the St.Mary's lifeboat. A SAR helecopter was also scrambled
from RNAS Culdrose, and between them seven Polish crew were taken off, leaving only the
captain aboard. The captain only asked to be taken off when the vessel listed heavily to
starboard as containers commenced to break loose. With no Customs or Coastguard Officers
on the island's, both having retired only a few days earlier, and only two full-time
policemen, monitoring the situation was difficult. Mainland reinforcements were sent for,
but by the time they arrived, much of the cargo had disappeared. The "CITA" will
certainly earn its place in history as 'Scilly's own Whisky Galore wreck'.
Minnehaha The Minnehaha was a 845-ton woodern sailing ship, owned by Messrs Hughes of Menai, and built at St John, New Brunswick, in 1857. At 0300hrs on Sunday, 18 January 1874, a light seen through the fog was assumed to be Wolf Rock, and Capt. Jones ordered the helm to be put down. The Channel Pilot, Capt. David Volk of Falmouth, shortly afterwards countermanded this order without the captain's knowledge. Within minutes she struck the south-east corner of Peninnis, amongst the Jolly Rocks. She went ashore with all sail set, almost on the top of the tide and holed the port bow. Capt. Volk, Capt. Jones and several of the crew drowned. In 1964 the bell of the Minnehaha was raised by a local diver, and now has a permanent resting place in the Isles Of Scilly museum. Good dive, but very broken and overgrown with kelp. As the dive profile denotes, the wreck is spread over a large area {shallow & deep}.
Plympton & Hathor The Plympton of London, a Commercial Steamship Co vessel, was the
first of the pair to sink, after going ashore in thick fog on 14th August 1909. She was
enroute from Villa Constitution to Dublin carrying bags of maize. Built for Furness, Withy
& Co of West Hartlepool in 1893, the Plympton, 314ft in length and of 2,869 tons gross
was declared a total loss. Her value for insurance purposes being set at £16,000, with
her cargo at an additional £25,000. On the 2nd December 1920 a big German steamer the
Hathor, of 7,060 tons gross, sank right across the wreck of the Plympton, at the base of
Lethegus Rocks. Built by J.C.Tecklenborg, in 1912 the Hathor of Hamburg had been interned
in a Chilean port for the duration of World War 1, during which time her machinery
suffered badly from neglect. Fourty six years after she sank, the ship's chronometer was
found, its gold-plated hands stopped for enernity at three minutes to eleven. The Hathor
took her cargo to the bottom and little or no salvage was ever carried out on either of
the two ships.
King Cadwallon Fog, the prime cause of so many losses around Scilly, put the
2,126 tons net King Line steamer King Cadwallon of Glasgow ashore on Hard Lewis Rocks, St
Mary's at 0500hre on the 22nd July 1906. After loading 5,032 tons of coal at Barry,
shipped by the Tredeager Coal & Iron Co of Cardiff, Capt. George Mowat and his crew of
twenty six had sailed at 0800hrs on 22nd July, bound for Naples. The King Cadwallon left
harbour in dence fog which continued until they were off Lundy, when it thinned for
half-an-hour, long enough for the captain to obtain an accurate position fix. From Lundy,
the steamer was set on a course of 56 degrees West until the log showed a distance of
seventy-seven miles had been covered, when the heading was altered to 34 degrees West.
Frequent soundings showed no sign of shoaling water. At 0457hrs a sounding showed
twenty-seven fathoms {162ft}, yet three minutes later she struck rocks, listed to
starboard. Within ten minutes the forehold was completely flooded. She slipped back into
deep water and foundered.
Douro A victim of Round Rock was the 200 ton Liverpool schooner, Douro,
on the 27th January 1843. Bound from Liverpool to Oporto with a cargo described as 'baled
goods, armoury and brass stops', she struck and sank in fog, her entire crew being lost.
Six bodies and the ship's figurehead were later recovered, but little else. When located
by divers accidentally in the early 1970's, the 'brass stops' in her cargo proved to be
thousands of brass manillas. These are bracelet-type tokens used in the West African slave
trade, but there is no proof that the Douro was herself engaged in the slave trade.
Aksai Possibly the only Russian steamship ever lost amongst the Isles Of
Scilly, the coal laden Aksai was wrecked at the back of St martin's, on White Island on
the 2nd of November 1875. She was on passage from Cardiff to Odessa when fog blurred the
outline of the Scillies. Capt. Boltine took her along the north side of St Martins, only
to strike White Island and remain fast. It was the Lady Of The Isles which went to the
rescue of her captain and crew of thirty-nine, leaving the steamer to go to pieces where
she lay.
Unknown Wreck This unknown wreck went down between 1700 & 1800. There was
not a lot of wreck left to see , but there were three large cannons on the sea bed along
with two very large anchors.
Rudder Wreck We called this wreck the Rudder Wreck. This is due to the fact
that no one can remember the name of the wreck and that the only part of the wreck that
can be dived is the huge wooden rudder and steering housing. The rest of the wreck lies in
approximately 80m of water nearby. The rudder section was broken off when it struck rocks,
and then drifted before sinking to the depths below.
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