Title
Juan Ferrer, October 23rd 1963
Subject
Motor Coaster
Shipwreck
Wreck
Description
The Juan Ferrer of Valencia was a handsome, well-equipped motor coaster of nearly 700 tons, thrashing her way up towards Land's end on her usual run from her home port of Liverpool.
Owned by Frederick Ferrer of Valencia, the Juan Ferrer was only three years old and had been built in her home port of AST Neptune. Her cargo was several thousand bundles of staves, large sheets of thick plywood, and sporting shotguns.
The weather was bad: a strong damp south-west wind had brought thick drizzle and occasional fierce rainstorms in from the Atlantic, and a heavy ground swell broke beneath the Lamorna Cliffs.
Steadily the Juan Ferrer rolled on through the wind and rain: at 2:30 am the light of another vessel astern suddenly vanished as she ran into a thick bank of fog. Her young captain, 32-year-old Luis Ruiz, made for the radio room to contact Land's Land and establish his position. Minutes ticked by with only the crackle of static coming through, then came a cry from the deck, "Rocks Ahead!" which sent him racing topside.
Right in front of the Juan Ferrer's bow towered 'great looming shapes' as the captain later described them and his shout for "Full Astern" was drowned as the coaster's elegantly flared bow smashed into a wall of granite below Carn Boscawen. Deck Cargo broke lose under the impact and, calling for all hands, the captain ran back to the radio room.
At 3 am, Land's End radio picked up 'Juan Ferrer. Am ashore vicinity of Mount's Bay.' It was the only signal Captain Ruiz could send out before the sea put the generators out of action.
Jose Sevillano, a 21-year-old sailor who had been hurled from his bunk by the sudden shock, reached the deck to find the ship already heeling over into the surf.
Benito Nuncy, another young seaman, joined in trying to launch the lifeboats which were carried on each side of the funnel, abaft the bridge. One boat was against the rocks, so the Spaniards turned to the other. After a struggle in the wind and darkness they lowered it, but a heavy sea smashed it against the coaster's side and it was swept away. There was one other boat, a small dinghy carried in the bows, but there was no hope of reaching it over the jumbled chaos of wha had once been a neatly-stacked deck cargo.
The Juan Ferrer listed until her decks were almost vertical, but the rocks were only twelve feet away and Benito Nuncy jumped overboard. He was dashed on to the rocks but managed to crawl up beyond reached of the waves: soon Jose Sevillano, Baldomero Garcia, the 19-year-old bosun and Jose Oijnaga, the 20 year-old chief engineer, also leapt overboard. Garcia vanished at once, even though he wore a life jacket like the others, and Oijnaga was swept away as he tried to get hold on the slippery granite. Jose Sevillano alone scrambled up to join Benito Nuncy on Carn Boscawen.
Fifteen minutes later the gallery boy, Jose Alonso, got ashore half-naked, and the three huddled among the boulders to shelter for the wind and driving rain. They stayed there in hope that more of their shipmates had survived, although the Juan Ferrer was barely visible in the surf below.
Captain Ruiz stayed with his ship until the last possible moment, when, although a non-swimmer, he leapt off the stern as the coaster rolled over beneath him. The suction dragged him down and when he surfaced it was to hear the cries of the crew around him, but they soon faded and he was left alone in the rough seas. Supported by a bundle of wooden staves from the cargo, he trod water and drifted back and forth with the current. The first streaks of dawn gave him hope, and as he rose on a wave crest he could just make out the distant shape of the Penlee lifeboat. He tried to shout and strike out towards her but his limbs were numb. Fortunately, his feeble cries were heard by two brothers, members of the Treen LSA company (another form of coastguard) who, along with every other rescue service had been searching for the Juan Ferrer since her distress call at three o'clock. The brothers signalled to the lifeboat and it closed in, hands reached down and Captain Ruiz was pulled from the sea in the last stages of exhaustion. He had been in the water for nearly four hours.
The three survivors on shore had stayed near the wreck for several hours before they struck off inland across the fields, and they were met by a rescue part at seven o'clock as they wandered up a farm lane. They were hurried to the warm hospitality of a nearby farm, whilst the coastguards, LSA companies, an armada of rescue ships and a naval helicopter converged on Carn Boscawen. The Juan Ferrer lay submerged, nothing visible except the tip of her bows, rocking gently up and down with the waves swirling back and forth across the white letters of her name.
Eleven of her crew had been drowned; nearly all of them young men in their early twenties. Only two were over thirty-two, and some, like the bosom, were hardly out of their teens.
Months after the wreck, the cargo was found strewed over the shores form Lands End to Marazion. The goods were particularly useful for local people, who used them in a variety of ingenious ways.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.215-218.
Owned by Frederick Ferrer of Valencia, the Juan Ferrer was only three years old and had been built in her home port of AST Neptune. Her cargo was several thousand bundles of staves, large sheets of thick plywood, and sporting shotguns.
The weather was bad: a strong damp south-west wind had brought thick drizzle and occasional fierce rainstorms in from the Atlantic, and a heavy ground swell broke beneath the Lamorna Cliffs.
Steadily the Juan Ferrer rolled on through the wind and rain: at 2:30 am the light of another vessel astern suddenly vanished as she ran into a thick bank of fog. Her young captain, 32-year-old Luis Ruiz, made for the radio room to contact Land's Land and establish his position. Minutes ticked by with only the crackle of static coming through, then came a cry from the deck, "Rocks Ahead!" which sent him racing topside.
Right in front of the Juan Ferrer's bow towered 'great looming shapes' as the captain later described them and his shout for "Full Astern" was drowned as the coaster's elegantly flared bow smashed into a wall of granite below Carn Boscawen. Deck Cargo broke lose under the impact and, calling for all hands, the captain ran back to the radio room.
At 3 am, Land's End radio picked up 'Juan Ferrer. Am ashore vicinity of Mount's Bay.' It was the only signal Captain Ruiz could send out before the sea put the generators out of action.
Jose Sevillano, a 21-year-old sailor who had been hurled from his bunk by the sudden shock, reached the deck to find the ship already heeling over into the surf.
Benito Nuncy, another young seaman, joined in trying to launch the lifeboats which were carried on each side of the funnel, abaft the bridge. One boat was against the rocks, so the Spaniards turned to the other. After a struggle in the wind and darkness they lowered it, but a heavy sea smashed it against the coaster's side and it was swept away. There was one other boat, a small dinghy carried in the bows, but there was no hope of reaching it over the jumbled chaos of wha had once been a neatly-stacked deck cargo.
The Juan Ferrer listed until her decks were almost vertical, but the rocks were only twelve feet away and Benito Nuncy jumped overboard. He was dashed on to the rocks but managed to crawl up beyond reached of the waves: soon Jose Sevillano, Baldomero Garcia, the 19-year-old bosun and Jose Oijnaga, the 20 year-old chief engineer, also leapt overboard. Garcia vanished at once, even though he wore a life jacket like the others, and Oijnaga was swept away as he tried to get hold on the slippery granite. Jose Sevillano alone scrambled up to join Benito Nuncy on Carn Boscawen.
Fifteen minutes later the gallery boy, Jose Alonso, got ashore half-naked, and the three huddled among the boulders to shelter for the wind and driving rain. They stayed there in hope that more of their shipmates had survived, although the Juan Ferrer was barely visible in the surf below.
Captain Ruiz stayed with his ship until the last possible moment, when, although a non-swimmer, he leapt off the stern as the coaster rolled over beneath him. The suction dragged him down and when he surfaced it was to hear the cries of the crew around him, but they soon faded and he was left alone in the rough seas. Supported by a bundle of wooden staves from the cargo, he trod water and drifted back and forth with the current. The first streaks of dawn gave him hope, and as he rose on a wave crest he could just make out the distant shape of the Penlee lifeboat. He tried to shout and strike out towards her but his limbs were numb. Fortunately, his feeble cries were heard by two brothers, members of the Treen LSA company (another form of coastguard) who, along with every other rescue service had been searching for the Juan Ferrer since her distress call at three o'clock. The brothers signalled to the lifeboat and it closed in, hands reached down and Captain Ruiz was pulled from the sea in the last stages of exhaustion. He had been in the water for nearly four hours.
The three survivors on shore had stayed near the wreck for several hours before they struck off inland across the fields, and they were met by a rescue part at seven o'clock as they wandered up a farm lane. They were hurried to the warm hospitality of a nearby farm, whilst the coastguards, LSA companies, an armada of rescue ships and a naval helicopter converged on Carn Boscawen. The Juan Ferrer lay submerged, nothing visible except the tip of her bows, rocking gently up and down with the waves swirling back and forth across the white letters of her name.
Eleven of her crew had been drowned; nearly all of them young men in their early twenties. Only two were over thirty-two, and some, like the bosom, were hardly out of their teens.
Months after the wreck, the cargo was found strewed over the shores form Lands End to Marazion. The goods were particularly useful for local people, who used them in a variety of ingenious ways.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.215-218.
Date
23-10-1963
Rights
Morrab Library
Format
Print
Type
Photograph
Identifier
COLLINS.096A
Coverage
Carn Boscawen