Written on the back by Serena Wadham "Tri X 1600 ASA"
Stanley Turner and a woman, on a boat fishing.
He is in what appears to be police uniform
Fishing boat build 1913 owned by W Harvey registered n Lowestoft under LT706 wrecked near Penzance. 42 Gross Tonnage
The South America was a steel screw steamer of 4,197 tons gross. She was owned by Nitrate Producers Company of London and had sailed from Hamburg bound for Cardiff in water ballast, under charter to the Hamburg Amerika Line. The weather was poor until March 12th 1912, when it cleared and Captain Bowling was able to morse 'All's well' to the signal station on the Lizard. But less than half an hour later the South America was steaming through thick banks of drizzle and frequent squalls of torrential rain and having to steer a zigzag course across Mount's Bay to avoid a Newlyn pilchard fleet, strung out haphazardly from Mousehole island to Runnelstone. At Midnight, Captain Bowling altered course northward to take the South America round Land's End. She ploughed on through the murk with the lookouts still keeping a wary eye open for the fishing boats and had just avoided a lugger lying at her nets when second officer Read saw the dark shape of land right ahead. The helm was swung hard over, but even as the steamer's 389 horse power engine was put violently into reverse there was a rumbling screech and she shuddered over the big round boulders of St. Loy Bay. By the time it rattled down on St. Loy bay, the steamer had been identified as the South America from London. A rocket line was fired over her, but as no one was left aboard to secure it. Captain Alfred Bowling and Chief officer Thom, and second officer Harold Read, a Penzance man, swam out, climbed up a rope over the ship's side and set up the lines to work the breeches-buoy. As dawn lightened the sky above Carn Boscawen, the ship's instruments and the crew's baggage were landed and the South America was seen to be lying broadside-on near Merton Point, at the western end of St. Loy. She looked intact, but when the tide ebbed her bottom plates were seen to be badly damaged. The salvage steamer Lady of the Isles arrived, but even then it was obvious reflecting the stranded steamer would be a very difficult operation. In the days after the wreck, prospects of salvage grew dimmer with every tide, and a gale which blew up a week later caused more serious damage. Finally, the underwriters disposed of her to the Western Marine Salvage Company of Penzance, who began to break her up. At a Board of Trade Enquiry in May 1912, Captain Bowling and his officers levelled charged of looting at the people of St. Loy, as a number of things, including the Chief Officer Thom's Boer war medals and a large manila hawser (ship rope) had mysteriously disappeared. The medals were returned but the hawser was not, and there was talk that someone had been wrecking. These accusations were bitterly resented by the local people, many of whom had given very help and opened their homes to the shipwrecked crew. After two days, the findings of the court were announced. Captain Bowling was found guilty of not having navigated the South America with due care and in a proper and seamanlike manner; he had failed to take soundings after the shore lights were obscured and should not have altered course until he was certain of the steamer's position. In view of his previous unblemished record, he did not lose his certificate but received a severe warning. After the proceedings he withdrew his allegations about the looting of the South America. During the spring and summer of 1912, the local people became familiar with the great hulk of the South American and the breaking gangs who swarmed over her, and many could remember similar scenes twenty years before, when the French pit wood steamer Saintonge was wrecked in the bay. Autumn came and the South America was still slowly diminishing as the salvage men cut deeper into her steel hull. October was an even foggier month than usual that year, and it was during the dark hours of the 14th that the extraordinary wrecked occurred in St. Loy, exactly seven months after the first one. At half-past three in the morning, John Richards was roused from his bed for the second time that year by unusual noise in the bay. He thought at first that the salvage men must have raised steam on the South America, or were engaged on som particularly noisy job, but as it seemed unlikely at that hour he took the lantern he had used to guide in the South America's crew and made his way down to the shore. Thick fog swirled over the sea and it was several minutes before he saw a small steamer right against the big hulk's weather side. Within an hour, the Lady of the Isles had arrived, towing the Newlyn Lifeboat, while the rocket cart from Mousehole had joined the inhabitants of St. Loy on the same rocks from which they had fired the line over the South America. The lifeboatmen and coastguards soon discovered that the stranded steamer was the 599- ton steel screw, schooner-rigged Abertay. Owned by Boise et Chabois of Lorient and bound for Barry with a cargo of pit wood. Description taken from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coasts (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1971), p.203-208. Another Account taken from 'Heritage Gateway 'https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=da9346b9-27dc-422b-b7b3-cab2112efe77&resourceID=19191 The steamer SOUTH AMERICA, bound from Hamburg to Cardiff, in ballast, went ashore in Boscanna Bay on the Cornish coast early yesterday morning. There was a thick fog at the time, and the ship got out of her course, presumably through a strong set of the tide. 'A resident on the coast heard the sound of rockets, and so close was the steamer to the shore that he hailed her and advised the crew to get into their boats. He directed them where to land by means of a lantern, and though the work of landing was attended with great danger, it was carried out without loss of life. The captain's wife and son were among the rescued. The rocket brigade was summoned from Mousehole and had a very difficult journey over hilly roads to the scene of the wreck, but before they reached the place the crew had been landed. 'The SOUTH AMERICA is a vessel of 2,700 tons register, and 7,000 tons carrying capacity. She is owned by Lowther, Latter and Co., of London. She left Hamburg on Sunday, and was due at Cardiff today. Her commander was Captain A. Bawling, of Margate. It is stated that water is in her holds and the engine-room.' (10) 'Two wrecks occurred on the Cornish coast during a fog early yesterday morning. 'In the first case the French steamer ABERTAY, from Lorient with pit props for Barry, went ashore in Boskenna Bay near Land's End, and was so near the wreck of another steamer, the SOUTH AMERICA, which went ashore at the same spot last March, that the crew were able to get on the deck of that derelict vessel.
Family Picnic Features Birch, Tuke, Tanner and Bell Leader.
Wreck of Tripolitania, wrecked at Loe Bar, December 18th 1912.
The 2,297-ton steamer Tripolitania of Genoa sailed from her home port on December 181th 1912, in water ballast for Barry Dcoks, under the command of Captain Elia Reppito, and when deep in the Bay of Biscay encountered the worst storm to sweep the Channel for fifty years. Gusting to over 100 mph, the WSW gale caught her high-riding hull as it would saild, and by 6 A.M on Boxing Day, when the Wolf Rock was sighted, she was in grave difficulities. She scraped past the Land's End Cliffs, and though water was pumped into her holds to force her deeper into the sea, she drove on. By noon the Tripolitania was inside the Lizard and, knowing she was doomed, Captain Reppito called the crew on to the bridge and told them that he was going to beach on Loe Bar. At full speed she surged up the coast, then the wheel was put hard rescue to arrive the Italians flung a roper over the bows and though the first man who slid down was swept away, twenty-seven others got safely ashore. During the next few ays the Tripolitania was driven farther up the bar sands, but she was little damaged and the work of refloating her began. Scores of labourers dug away the sand which continually built around her, coffer dams were erected and channels cut back to the sea. Months passed, and she still remained on the bar. In August 1913 hopes of salvage were still good, but on November 4th a south-west gale and high spring tide destroyed a year's work in a night. By dawn she had wallowed her way 300 yeards further inshore and settled down even deeper; Tripolitania was launched on the Mersey in 1905 as the Drumgarth, for John Heron & Co of Liverpool. She later became the Lord Cromer, and in December 1911 passed to Luigi Pillagura of Genoa. By a coincidence, her last captain before she was sold to the Italians was Captain J.J Beckerleg of Marazion, whose home was only half a dozen mile from Loe Bar. Description from Richard Larn and Clive Carter, Cornish Shipwrecks: The South Coast (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 171), p. 163.
Newspaper image of " SS Blue Jacket" off Longships Lighthouse
SS Blue Jacket ran around at longships. Following account taken from Penwith Local History GroupThe last cargo of the long passage – railway sleepers from Danzig – is safely landed at Plymouth. It should be an easy trip for the Blue Jacket, round Land’s End to South Wales. Three compasses and steam steering fitted, all recently examined and found to be in perfect order. Sea flat; stars out; lights all clearly visible. Two men on watch tonight, one steering and one lookout. Asleep below, another 21 men, some no doubt dreaming happily of the streets, chapels, public houses of Cardiff. The Captain’s a young man, and his wife’s on board, so he’s happy too. What could possibly go wrong? Yes, Captain Thomas knows that, in theory, there should be three on watch. But he’s let the first mate – William Rouffignac of Newlyn - have a good night’s sleep. (William is the brother of Ambrose Roffignac who was the subject on On This Day 24 August 1898) After all, there’s the empty hold to clean out tomorrow, and after that desertion at Algiers, and the bosun being discharged at Falmouth, the numbers are a bit light. Who can blame the captain for bending the rules? For cutting through a bit of red tape, a bit of bureaucratic nonsense? The ship passes the Lizard, making its way towards Land’s End. Captain Thomas decides to call it a night, goes below. The second mate, Mr Sinclair, is perfectly competent – he’s got his paperwork. But still, Land’s End is Land’s End. The captain comes back up when the lighthouses are in view, checks all is well, returns below. Mr Sinclair has been round Land’s End before; knows the ropes. He remembers quite clearly; pass to the inside of the Longships lighthouse. And his recollections of tonight will also be clear – that he went back to the captain, who was relaxing on a settee in his berth, and who told him: "All right, haul it right ahead… I will be up directly." But Captain Thomas will claim otherwise; claim that he was never even called. So it is, then, that things start to fall apart. The man on lookout – Mr Hughes - has to go and trim wicks on the lamps, leaving nobody except Mr Sinclair who - perhaps slightly anxious now – edges to port, intent on passing to the inside of the lighthouse. The one thing he knows about Land’s End, is that this is the right thing to do. The steering is slow to answer, though, and he runs for the captain, while the wheelman telegraphs down to the engine room: full astern. But it’s too late; far, far too late. The closing minutes of November 9th see her “dashed with tremendous force on the ledge of rock, so that the bow was sent up high on the rocks, while her bottom was torn away right to the engine-room”. Mrs Thomas is thrown against a bulkhead, and sees the doors of a bookcase fly open. And so the day ends with Blue Jacket fast on the rocks, less than 50 yards from the lighthouse, a 20 foot gash in her side. “She commenced to make water rapidly in the fore and main holds and in the engine room”, the Board of Trade report will state, “and it became apparent that nothing could be done to save her”. Happily, not a single person was to lose their life that night: the Sennen lifeboat would have a straightforward task in the calm sea. What nobody could understand was how, with the lights of both ship and lighthouse plainly visible and the crew and lighthouse keepers close enough to converse, with all the modern equipment on board, such a thing could have happened. At the official hearing, blame would be placed squarely on the “defaults and negligence of the master”. He was in good health, had enjoyed a day’s rest in Plymouth and had an easy run home ahead of him: these things considered, the Board of Trade ruled, he had no business leaving the bridge. His certificate was suspended for six months. Cornishman 17th November 1898 page 3 Cornish Telegraph 17th November 1898, page 5 Full Board of Trade report (accessed 21 10 2017)