Title
Voorspoed, Dutch barquentine ashore Perranporth, March 7th 1901
Subject
Shipwreck
Description
The 286-ton steel schooner Voorspoed of Amsterdam, W.K. machinery and general cargo, failed to weather Droskyn Point, in a fresh northerly gale on March 7th 1901.
Sampson Mitchell of Alma fame, hit her mainmast with the first rocket, and the exhausted, seasick Dutchmen, and a young English cabin boy fresh from training ship were landed. Captain de Grooth refused to leave until coastguards and a local doctor, who had gone out to attend a sailor prostrated with expourse and rum, showed him the wreck of the Seine.
The Voorspoed, listing slightly to starboard, ebbed dry at noon, when stores, gear, clothes, and a stuffed alligator were landed by breeches-buoy.
How and when the looting started was never determined, but Captain de Grooth later said, "I have been wrecked in different parts of the globe, even in the Fiji island, but never among such savages as those of Perranporth." Most of the blame fell on the Navvies working on the new GWR branch line from Chasewater to Newquay, though Perran men were seen on deck surrounded by the beach in aprons of local women.
The Voorspoed, ex-Foxham, ex-Jan Derks, launched in 1892 by Neistern & Co of Martenshoek was refloated a fortnight later by the Falmouth tug Triton, but on her next voyage disappeared with all hands while bound for Newfoundland.
Description from Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The North Coast (London: Penn Books Ltd, 1970), p87.
Sampson Mitchell of Alma fame, hit her mainmast with the first rocket, and the exhausted, seasick Dutchmen, and a young English cabin boy fresh from training ship were landed. Captain de Grooth refused to leave until coastguards and a local doctor, who had gone out to attend a sailor prostrated with expourse and rum, showed him the wreck of the Seine.
The Voorspoed, listing slightly to starboard, ebbed dry at noon, when stores, gear, clothes, and a stuffed alligator were landed by breeches-buoy.
How and when the looting started was never determined, but Captain de Grooth later said, "I have been wrecked in different parts of the globe, even in the Fiji island, but never among such savages as those of Perranporth." Most of the blame fell on the Navvies working on the new GWR branch line from Chasewater to Newquay, though Perran men were seen on deck surrounded by the beach in aprons of local women.
The Voorspoed, ex-Foxham, ex-Jan Derks, launched in 1892 by Neistern & Co of Martenshoek was refloated a fortnight later by the Falmouth tug Triton, but on her next voyage disappeared with all hands while bound for Newfoundland.
Description from Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The North Coast (London: Penn Books Ltd, 1970), p87.
Creator
Gibson
Date
1901-03-07
Rights
Morrab library
Format
Print
Identifier
RGN.052
Coverage
perranporth
Physical Dimensions
10" x 8"