Title
South American ashore at St Loy and Abertay laying next to vessel in October 1912,
Subject
Shipwreck
Wreck
Description
The South America was a steel screw steamer of 4,197 tons gross. She was owned by Nitrate Producers Company of London and had sailed from Hamburg bound for Cardiff in water ballast, under charter to the Hamburg Amerika Line.
The weather was poor until March 12th 1912, when it cleared and Captain Bowling was able to morse 'All's well' to the signal station on the Lizard. But less than half an hour later the South America was steaming through thick banks of drizzle and frequent squalls of torrential rain and having to steer a zigzag course across Mount's Bay to avoid a Newlyn pilchard fleet, strung out haphazardly from Mousehole island to Runnelstone.
At Midnight, Captain Bowling altered course northward to take the South America round Land's End. She ploughed on through the murk with the lookouts still keeping a wary eye open for the fishing boats and had just avoided a lugger lying at her nets when second officer Read saw the dark shape of land right ahead. The helm was swung hard over, but even as the steamer's 389 horse power engine was put violently into reverse there was a rumbling screech and she shuddered over the big round boulders of St. Loy Bay.
By the time it rattled down on St. Loy bay, the steamer had been identified as the South America from London. A rocket line was fired over her, but as no one was left aboard to secure it. Captain Alfred Bowling and Chief officer Thom, and second officer Harold Read, a Penzance man, swam out, climbed up a rope over the ship's side and set up the lines to work the breeches-buoy. As dawn lightened the sky above Carn Boscawen, the ship's instruments and the crew's baggage were landed and the South America was seen to be lying broadside-on near Merton Point, at the western end of St. Loy. She looked intact, but when the tide ebbed her bottom plates were seen to be badly damaged. The salvage steamer Lady of the Isles arrived, but even then it was obvious reflecting the stranded steamer would be a very difficult operation.
In the days after the wreck, prospects of salvage grew dimmer with every tide, and a gale which blew up a week later caused more serious damage. Finally, the underwriters disposed of her to the Western Marine Salvage Company of Penzance, who began to break her up.
At a Board of Trade Enquiry in May 1912, Captain Bowling and his officers levelled charged of looting at the people of St. Loy, as a number of things, including the Chief Officer Thom's Boer war medals and a large manila hawser (ship rope) had mysteriously disappeared. The medals were returned but the hawser was not, and there was talk that someone had been wrecking. These accusations were bitterly resented by the local people, many of whom had given very help and opened their homes to the shipwrecked crew. After two days, the findings of the court were announced. Captain Bowling was found guilty of not having navigated the South America with due care and in a proper and seamanlike manner; he had failed to take soundings after the shore lights were obscured and should not have altered course until he was certain of the steamer's position. In view of his previous unblemished record, he did not lose his certificate but received a severe warning. After the proceedings he withdrew his allegations about the looting of the South America.
During the spring and summer of 1912, the local people became familiar with the great hulk of the South American and the breaking gangs who swarmed over her, and many could remember similar scenes twenty years before, when the French pit wood steamer Saintonge was wrecked in the bay.
Autumn came and the South America was still slowly diminishing as the salvage men cut deeper into her steel hull. October was an even foggier month than usual that year, and it was during the dark hours of the 14th that the extraordinary wrecked occurred in St. Loy, exactly seven months after the first one. At half-past three in the morning, John Richards was roused from his bed for the second time that year by unusual noise in the bay. He thought at first that the salvage men must have raised steam on the South America, or were engaged on som particularly noisy job, but as it seemed unlikely at that hour he took the lantern he had used to guide in the South America's crew and made his way down to the shore. Thick fog swirled over the sea and it was several minutes before he saw a small steamer right against the big hulk's weather side.
Within an hour, the Lady of the Isles had arrived, towing the Newlyn Lifeboat, while the rocket cart from Mousehole had joined the inhabitants of St. Loy on the same rocks from which they had fired the line over the South America. The lifeboatmen and coastguards soon discovered that the stranded steamer was the 599- ton steel screw, schooner-rigged Abertay. Owned by Boise et Chabois of Lorient and bound for Barry with a cargo of pit wood.
Description taken from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coasts (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.203-208.
The Abertay was a 599-ton steel screw, schooner rigged steamer. Owned by Bois et Chabois of Lorient and bound for Barry with a cargo of pit wood. Launched in 1888 by W. Simon & Company of Renfrew.
She had sailed from France thirty-six hours previously and encouraged foggy weather right from the start. It got worse, and shortly before midnight on the 13th the wind had fallen away and the fog became so thick that the lookouts could scarcely see beyond the bow. Around three o'clock there was a tremendous crash and her crew confronted by a tall Shape of the South America Vessel that had crashed in the bay in March. The Abertay began to pound and roll on the docks and they knew she was ashore.
Dawn revealed an amazing sight. The Abertay lay so neatly placed alongside the South America that it looked as though they had been deliberately moored together. But beneath the swell it was a different story: the French steamer's forefoot and bilges were a crumpled mass of metal, the plates buckled and twisted apart.
Her master, Biscayan of about forty suffered further misfortune on the day after the wreck when he slipped and fell over the ledge on the cliff and was rushed to Penzance with serious injuries. The Abertay was beyond salvage and was broken up for scrap along with the South America.
Description from Richard Barn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p. 207-208.
The weather was poor until March 12th 1912, when it cleared and Captain Bowling was able to morse 'All's well' to the signal station on the Lizard. But less than half an hour later the South America was steaming through thick banks of drizzle and frequent squalls of torrential rain and having to steer a zigzag course across Mount's Bay to avoid a Newlyn pilchard fleet, strung out haphazardly from Mousehole island to Runnelstone.
At Midnight, Captain Bowling altered course northward to take the South America round Land's End. She ploughed on through the murk with the lookouts still keeping a wary eye open for the fishing boats and had just avoided a lugger lying at her nets when second officer Read saw the dark shape of land right ahead. The helm was swung hard over, but even as the steamer's 389 horse power engine was put violently into reverse there was a rumbling screech and she shuddered over the big round boulders of St. Loy Bay.
By the time it rattled down on St. Loy bay, the steamer had been identified as the South America from London. A rocket line was fired over her, but as no one was left aboard to secure it. Captain Alfred Bowling and Chief officer Thom, and second officer Harold Read, a Penzance man, swam out, climbed up a rope over the ship's side and set up the lines to work the breeches-buoy. As dawn lightened the sky above Carn Boscawen, the ship's instruments and the crew's baggage were landed and the South America was seen to be lying broadside-on near Merton Point, at the western end of St. Loy. She looked intact, but when the tide ebbed her bottom plates were seen to be badly damaged. The salvage steamer Lady of the Isles arrived, but even then it was obvious reflecting the stranded steamer would be a very difficult operation.
In the days after the wreck, prospects of salvage grew dimmer with every tide, and a gale which blew up a week later caused more serious damage. Finally, the underwriters disposed of her to the Western Marine Salvage Company of Penzance, who began to break her up.
At a Board of Trade Enquiry in May 1912, Captain Bowling and his officers levelled charged of looting at the people of St. Loy, as a number of things, including the Chief Officer Thom's Boer war medals and a large manila hawser (ship rope) had mysteriously disappeared. The medals were returned but the hawser was not, and there was talk that someone had been wrecking. These accusations were bitterly resented by the local people, many of whom had given very help and opened their homes to the shipwrecked crew. After two days, the findings of the court were announced. Captain Bowling was found guilty of not having navigated the South America with due care and in a proper and seamanlike manner; he had failed to take soundings after the shore lights were obscured and should not have altered course until he was certain of the steamer's position. In view of his previous unblemished record, he did not lose his certificate but received a severe warning. After the proceedings he withdrew his allegations about the looting of the South America.
During the spring and summer of 1912, the local people became familiar with the great hulk of the South American and the breaking gangs who swarmed over her, and many could remember similar scenes twenty years before, when the French pit wood steamer Saintonge was wrecked in the bay.
Autumn came and the South America was still slowly diminishing as the salvage men cut deeper into her steel hull. October was an even foggier month than usual that year, and it was during the dark hours of the 14th that the extraordinary wrecked occurred in St. Loy, exactly seven months after the first one. At half-past three in the morning, John Richards was roused from his bed for the second time that year by unusual noise in the bay. He thought at first that the salvage men must have raised steam on the South America, or were engaged on som particularly noisy job, but as it seemed unlikely at that hour he took the lantern he had used to guide in the South America's crew and made his way down to the shore. Thick fog swirled over the sea and it was several minutes before he saw a small steamer right against the big hulk's weather side.
Within an hour, the Lady of the Isles had arrived, towing the Newlyn Lifeboat, while the rocket cart from Mousehole had joined the inhabitants of St. Loy on the same rocks from which they had fired the line over the South America. The lifeboatmen and coastguards soon discovered that the stranded steamer was the 599- ton steel screw, schooner-rigged Abertay. Owned by Boise et Chabois of Lorient and bound for Barry with a cargo of pit wood.
Description taken from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coasts (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.203-208.
The Abertay was a 599-ton steel screw, schooner rigged steamer. Owned by Bois et Chabois of Lorient and bound for Barry with a cargo of pit wood. Launched in 1888 by W. Simon & Company of Renfrew.
She had sailed from France thirty-six hours previously and encouraged foggy weather right from the start. It got worse, and shortly before midnight on the 13th the wind had fallen away and the fog became so thick that the lookouts could scarcely see beyond the bow. Around three o'clock there was a tremendous crash and her crew confronted by a tall Shape of the South America Vessel that had crashed in the bay in March. The Abertay began to pound and roll on the docks and they knew she was ashore.
Dawn revealed an amazing sight. The Abertay lay so neatly placed alongside the South America that it looked as though they had been deliberately moored together. But beneath the swell it was a different story: the French steamer's forefoot and bilges were a crumpled mass of metal, the plates buckled and twisted apart.
Her master, Biscayan of about forty suffered further misfortune on the day after the wreck when he slipped and fell over the ledge on the cliff and was rushed to Penzance with serious injuries. The Abertay was beyond salvage and was broken up for scrap along with the South America.
Description from Richard Barn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p. 207-208.
Publisher
Morrab library
Date
1912
Rights
Morrab library
Format
Cabinet Glass Negative
Identifier
WRECKS 32CG 168
WRECKS 32CF 188A
WRECKS 32CF 188A
Coverage
Lands End
Street Name
South Amerca -n Abertaye