Title
Ocklinge, wrecked at Coverack, March 4th 1932
Subject
Shipwreck
Description
On March 4th 1932, the steamer Ocklinge was lost in the same place as the French Collier Gap, as there seemed no reason of weather or visibility for her to have got so far off course.
She had been towed into Falmouth early the same day by the German tug Seefalke, having sheared the bolts of her rudder quadrant in a gale of Ushant whilst bound from Bilboa to Newport with Iron ore.
After hurried repairs, she sailed the same day for Wales and two hours later was aground on the point, only sixty yards offshore, flooded fore and aft.
Salvage started immediately and nearly 100 labourers were employed to remove the cargo. But she was never refloated, and eventually the owners, Messrs Constants of Cardiff, asked the Western Marine Company to break her up for scrap.
At Lowland Point, there is still a huge propeller on the rocks, said to have come from her. The Ocklinge was the second steamer of Constant's lost off Cornwall, the Lyminge having been wrecked at Gurnard's Head on September 19th 1931.
At the Board of Trade enquiry into the loss of the Ocklinge, Captain Driscoll, found guilty of making false declarations and forging documents, received a six-month prison sentence as well as having his certificate suspended for twelve months.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.97-98.
She had been towed into Falmouth early the same day by the German tug Seefalke, having sheared the bolts of her rudder quadrant in a gale of Ushant whilst bound from Bilboa to Newport with Iron ore.
After hurried repairs, she sailed the same day for Wales and two hours later was aground on the point, only sixty yards offshore, flooded fore and aft.
Salvage started immediately and nearly 100 labourers were employed to remove the cargo. But she was never refloated, and eventually the owners, Messrs Constants of Cardiff, asked the Western Marine Company to break her up for scrap.
At Lowland Point, there is still a huge propeller on the rocks, said to have come from her. The Ocklinge was the second steamer of Constant's lost off Cornwall, the Lyminge having been wrecked at Gurnard's Head on September 19th 1931.
At the Board of Trade enquiry into the loss of the Ocklinge, Captain Driscoll, found guilty of making false declarations and forging documents, received a six-month prison sentence as well as having his certificate suspended for twelve months.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.97-98.
Publisher
Morrab Library
Date
1932-3-4
Rights
Morrab Library
Format
Print
Type
Photograph
Identifier
M.2490
Coverage
Coverack