Title
HMS Medea, wrecked at Doom Bar, January 28th 1939
Subject
Minelayer
Shipwreck
Wreck
Description
The only visible wreckage on the Doom Bar is the bottom tanks and plating of the minelayer HMS Medea, wrecked on January 28th 1939 during the hurricane which destroyed the Glasgow Collier Winston near Zennor.
The 540-ton Medea, launched in 1915 by R.Dixon of Middlesborough as the 12-knot mointor M.22, later HMS Monitor, sporting an old 9.2-in gun and twelve pounder aft, was converted to a minelayer after the First World War.
She was attached to HMS Vernon and her last service was as an instructional ship at Malta. In the late 1930s, she was condemned for breaking, but broke tow off Trovose Head while on voyage for Wales.
Flares were burned but the Medea, hidden by the rain and spray, drove into Trebetherick in a spot completely inaccessible to the lifeboat. One man was lost overboard but three others were taken off by Breeches Buoy. The Lifeboat stood until 7am, the turned for home and was swamped off Stepper. Sidelights, rails and hatches were lost, siz batteries were cracked, and if the motor had failed there would have been a second lifeboat diaster on the Cornish coast that night. The old monitor was scrapped where she lay, and today only rusting wreckage and a largr concrete drrrick post mark her last resting place.
Descritpion from Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The North Coast: (London: Penn Books LTD, 1970), p.127.
The 540-ton Medea, launched in 1915 by R.Dixon of Middlesborough as the 12-knot mointor M.22, later HMS Monitor, sporting an old 9.2-in gun and twelve pounder aft, was converted to a minelayer after the First World War.
She was attached to HMS Vernon and her last service was as an instructional ship at Malta. In the late 1930s, she was condemned for breaking, but broke tow off Trovose Head while on voyage for Wales.
Flares were burned but the Medea, hidden by the rain and spray, drove into Trebetherick in a spot completely inaccessible to the lifeboat. One man was lost overboard but three others were taken off by Breeches Buoy. The Lifeboat stood until 7am, the turned for home and was swamped off Stepper. Sidelights, rails and hatches were lost, siz batteries were cracked, and if the motor had failed there would have been a second lifeboat diaster on the Cornish coast that night. The old monitor was scrapped where she lay, and today only rusting wreckage and a largr concrete drrrick post mark her last resting place.
Descritpion from Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The North Coast: (London: Penn Books LTD, 1970), p.127.
Date
1939-01-28
Rights
Morrab Library
Format
Print
Type
Photograph
Identifier
COLLINS.123
Coverage
Padstow, Cornwall
Original Format
Print and negative