Title
Abertay (right) and South America (Left), October 1912
Subject
Steamer
Shipwreck
Wreck
Description
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.
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.
Date
14-10-1912
Rights
Morrab Library
Identifier
COLLINS.002A
Coverage
St Loy
Original Format
Print