Title
Queen Margaret, 1913
Subject
Shipwreck
Description
The Queen Margaret was one of the only two British ships ever to carry three skysails and her reputation for speed, grace, and good treatment of crews was legendary among seafarers.
When she left Barry docks in July 1912 with a cargo of coal for Montevideo, Uruguay, she carried a crew of twenty-five under the command of Captain Bousefield of Ripley, Yorkshire, making his first voyage as master and accompanied by his wife and son.
Montevideo was reached without special incident and after discharging her coal, Queen Margaret went on to Sydney to load wheat and sailed for Falmouth on January 17th 1913.
One hundred and thirty days out, at 4:00 am on May 13th, the barque was close-hauled off the Lizard waiting for daylight to communicated with Lloyds signal station and report her arrival. As soon as visibility allowed, Captain Bousfield signalled his identity with a string of flags and was given in return a message from his owners instructing him to discharge his cargo at Limerick and then go on to Glasgow to pay off his crew.
The wind being very light and variable, Captain Bousefield passed a message through Lloyd's requesting the owners' permission to engage tugs to take him clear of Land's End. While awaiting a reply to the message, which had to be relayed to London, the ship beat slowly back and forth in front of the headland and had just come about to stand westward again when she suddenly shuddered and ground to a halt.
Incredulously, master and crew looked over the side to see rocks and weed only a few feet underwater. The Queen Margaret was firmly impaled on Maenheere Rock at the eastern end of the Stages Reef, less than half a mile from Polpeor and despite combined efforts of tugs from Falmouth she was still hard aground after the next high tide. On the ebb, she fell over on to her port side until her yardarms touched the water, then her four tall masts broke off and the elegant tracery of her rigging and clewed-up gull wings crashed down into the sea. Later, her long, slim hull bulged and parted under pressure of the swollen wheat and when the time came to auction off that remained of this once lovely ship, the Queen Margaret changed owners for the paltry sum of £50.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p126-127.
When she left Barry docks in July 1912 with a cargo of coal for Montevideo, Uruguay, she carried a crew of twenty-five under the command of Captain Bousefield of Ripley, Yorkshire, making his first voyage as master and accompanied by his wife and son.
Montevideo was reached without special incident and after discharging her coal, Queen Margaret went on to Sydney to load wheat and sailed for Falmouth on January 17th 1913.
One hundred and thirty days out, at 4:00 am on May 13th, the barque was close-hauled off the Lizard waiting for daylight to communicated with Lloyds signal station and report her arrival. As soon as visibility allowed, Captain Bousfield signalled his identity with a string of flags and was given in return a message from his owners instructing him to discharge his cargo at Limerick and then go on to Glasgow to pay off his crew.
The wind being very light and variable, Captain Bousefield passed a message through Lloyd's requesting the owners' permission to engage tugs to take him clear of Land's End. While awaiting a reply to the message, which had to be relayed to London, the ship beat slowly back and forth in front of the headland and had just come about to stand westward again when she suddenly shuddered and ground to a halt.
Incredulously, master and crew looked over the side to see rocks and weed only a few feet underwater. The Queen Margaret was firmly impaled on Maenheere Rock at the eastern end of the Stages Reef, less than half a mile from Polpeor and despite combined efforts of tugs from Falmouth she was still hard aground after the next high tide. On the ebb, she fell over on to her port side until her yardarms touched the water, then her four tall masts broke off and the elegant tracery of her rigging and clewed-up gull wings crashed down into the sea. Later, her long, slim hull bulged and parted under pressure of the swollen wheat and when the time came to auction off that remained of this once lovely ship, the Queen Margaret changed owners for the paltry sum of £50.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p126-127.
Creator
Gibson
Date
1913-05-05
Rights
Morrab library
Format
Print
Identifier
RGN.109A
Coverage
Lizard
Physical Dimensions
12" x 9"