Title
St Anne, Wrecked at Porthleven, Mount's Bay, November 3rd 1931
Subject
schooner
Description
The little French Schooner, St Anne was the last to be embayed and wrecked at Mount's Bay.
It was tossed ashore on Porthleven Beach by a south-west gale on November 3rd 1931. She had sailed from Cardiff the previous morning, homeward bound to Vannes with coal, but the fine weather soon changed.
Her rudder was smashed by heavy seas and several sails were blown away before she crawled past the Wolf Rock in darkness and was carried to leeward towards Mount's Bay.
Throughout the morning on November 3rd she ran before the storm and the sight of the battered schooner brought to readiness every lifeboat from LSA company between Penzance and the Lizard. The master of the St Anne, Captain Le Bitter, headed for Porthleven harbour but was foiled by tremendous seas.
The St Anne hauled of a little to the east but, unable to stand up to the gale, she was flung ashore just outside the harbour mouth. The crew climbed into the rigging and clung there as the schooner rolled in the surf. A man swam out with a line but was driven back when almost on point of securing it to the bowsprit guys. The Porthleven rocket brigades first rocket was swept away over the stern into the sea, but the second fell straight and true, just forward of the mainmast, where it was easily secured. One by one the five men and a boy were brought ashore, the last crew to be wrecked in a fashion which for two centuries had brought tragedy and heroism to the eastern shores of Mount's Bay.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.182-183.
It was tossed ashore on Porthleven Beach by a south-west gale on November 3rd 1931. She had sailed from Cardiff the previous morning, homeward bound to Vannes with coal, but the fine weather soon changed.
Her rudder was smashed by heavy seas and several sails were blown away before she crawled past the Wolf Rock in darkness and was carried to leeward towards Mount's Bay.
Throughout the morning on November 3rd she ran before the storm and the sight of the battered schooner brought to readiness every lifeboat from LSA company between Penzance and the Lizard. The master of the St Anne, Captain Le Bitter, headed for Porthleven harbour but was foiled by tremendous seas.
The St Anne hauled of a little to the east but, unable to stand up to the gale, she was flung ashore just outside the harbour mouth. The crew climbed into the rigging and clung there as the schooner rolled in the surf. A man swam out with a line but was driven back when almost on point of securing it to the bowsprit guys. The Porthleven rocket brigades first rocket was swept away over the stern into the sea, but the second fell straight and true, just forward of the mainmast, where it was easily secured. One by one the five men and a boy were brought ashore, the last crew to be wrecked in a fashion which for two centuries had brought tragedy and heroism to the eastern shores of Mount's Bay.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.182-183.
Date
1931
Identifier
WRECKS 32OF 251
Coverage
Portlevan
Street Name
St Anne