Title
Vierge Marie - Belgian trawler, Wrecked on 13th January 1937.
Subject
Shipwreck
Description
The Belgian Motor trawler, Vierge Marie of Ostend was a 200 ton vessel. She was on her way into Newlyn after developing engine trouble off Pendeen the previous afternoon, and there had been no warning of how close the weather had brought her to the Lamorna Cliffs until she struck on January 13th 1937.
Captain Josef Lus radioed an 'SOS' but the ground swell was so bad that he had to give the order to abandon ship without waiting for rescue. As the dinghy was launched a wave overturned it: the captain and mate jumped into the sea, but engineer Hessene and deckhands Easton and Miel righted the dinghy and pulled clear, only to capsize on the point of being rescued by Penlee Lifeboat. The trawler's young cabin boy, Valentine Maartens, was missing, presumed swept overboard and drowned. The Vierge Marie rolled over to starboard a few hours after going ashore and within a day was jumbled mass of broken plating and fittings jammed beneath the cliffs at Tater Du.
A farm labourer who lived near Carn Boscawen stepped from his cottage door shortly before dawn and was greeted by the thick, pungent reek of fuel oil wafting in from the sea. Buttoning his heavy waterproofs against the driving wind and rain, he picked his way across the fields and soon made out the lights of the Vierge Marie, ashore in a narrow cove just beyond Tater Du point.
When he heard the shouts of the crew he wasted no time in getting to the farm where he worked, so that the news could be telephoned to Penzance. He then returned to the wreck with more men and ropes, only to see a small boat, manned by three men, capsize as the Penlee Lifeboat closed in to rescue them. They were buoyed up their lifejackets, but even so were in a bad way when they were hauled out.
Artificial respiration was kept up on all three as the lifeboat sped back to Newlyn, but they died before they reached hospital.
As the light grew, the men on the cliffs could see no sign of life as the trawler rolled and slewed with every wave that broke into the small cove. Unknown to them, the farm labourer's wife had been roused by a loud knocking an hour after her husband had left, and, thinking he had returned, she opened the door to be confronted by a drenched and battered stranger. In fluent English, he told her he was Captain Josef Lus and that his ship had been wrecked nearby. While the women heated kettles and fetched blankets, he staggered off into the fog again, to return ten minutes later supporting his chief mat, Gustave Vanlee, who's legs were so badly cut that he could hardly stand.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p. 210-211.
Captain Josef Lus radioed an 'SOS' but the ground swell was so bad that he had to give the order to abandon ship without waiting for rescue. As the dinghy was launched a wave overturned it: the captain and mate jumped into the sea, but engineer Hessene and deckhands Easton and Miel righted the dinghy and pulled clear, only to capsize on the point of being rescued by Penlee Lifeboat. The trawler's young cabin boy, Valentine Maartens, was missing, presumed swept overboard and drowned. The Vierge Marie rolled over to starboard a few hours after going ashore and within a day was jumbled mass of broken plating and fittings jammed beneath the cliffs at Tater Du.
A farm labourer who lived near Carn Boscawen stepped from his cottage door shortly before dawn and was greeted by the thick, pungent reek of fuel oil wafting in from the sea. Buttoning his heavy waterproofs against the driving wind and rain, he picked his way across the fields and soon made out the lights of the Vierge Marie, ashore in a narrow cove just beyond Tater Du point.
When he heard the shouts of the crew he wasted no time in getting to the farm where he worked, so that the news could be telephoned to Penzance. He then returned to the wreck with more men and ropes, only to see a small boat, manned by three men, capsize as the Penlee Lifeboat closed in to rescue them. They were buoyed up their lifejackets, but even so were in a bad way when they were hauled out.
Artificial respiration was kept up on all three as the lifeboat sped back to Newlyn, but they died before they reached hospital.
As the light grew, the men on the cliffs could see no sign of life as the trawler rolled and slewed with every wave that broke into the small cove. Unknown to them, the farm labourer's wife had been roused by a loud knocking an hour after her husband had left, and, thinking he had returned, she opened the door to be confronted by a drenched and battered stranger. In fluent English, he told her he was Captain Josef Lus and that his ship had been wrecked nearby. While the women heated kettles and fetched blankets, he staggered off into the fog again, to return ten minutes later supporting his chief mat, Gustave Vanlee, who's legs were so badly cut that he could hardly stand.
Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p. 210-211.
Date
1937-01-11
Rights
Morrab Library
Format
Half Plate Glass Negative
Type
Photograph
Identifier
WRECKS 32HG 072
Coverage
Lamorna
Physical Dimensions
165x120mm