Wrecks - GOWER SHIPWRECKS
Gower Shipwrecks 1920 - 1938
Last Updated (Monday, 04 January 2010 15:27) Friday, 04 December 2009 16:30
Gower Shipwrecks 1920 - 1938
FLEUR de FRANCE This schooner, registered in Fécamp, stranded on the Mixon on 2 April 1920. The sailing lifeboat Charlie Medland from Mumbles and the pilot cutter Beaufort got her off the bank and beached at Mumbles where she filled with the tide. She was eventually refloated and taken into Swansea for repair.
Schooner Fleur de France beached at Mumbles.
Capt Boutichier and the crew of the Fleur de France on the promenade at Mumbles. I was loaned this photograph by Melville Clare's son Herbert.
PRIMROSE The former Cardiff pilot cutter was wrecked on Oxwich point in July 1920. Two local men saw her driven ashore and, when they saw someone aboard, scrambled over the rocks to assist. The man was preparing to jump overboard when the mast fell killing him. A national insurance card in the name of Augustine O'Shea was washed up along with fourteen one pound notes. O'Shea had purchased the vessel in order to return home to Ireland. His body was recovered and lies buried in Oxwich churchyard.
FELLSIDE Belfast registered steamship stranded in Heatherslade Bay, Pennard, before dawn on 8 January 1924. One member of the crew was drowned when abandoning ship. Bound to Swansea with pit props she became a total wreck and was scrapped by Greening & Co. of Killay.
The FELLSIDE stranded at Heatherslade, Pennard.
HARRY HERBERT This schooner, owned in Kinsale, was Liverpool bound with a cargo of timber when she was disabled by a gale and driven up channel. She stranded on the Lynch on 3 March 1926. Her crew got ashore and the wrecked vessel was washed ashore at Burry Holms.
CRANSTONE Bound from Hamburg to Liverpool with a cargo of lignite which was badly needed in Britain due to the General Strike. The cargo caught alight and course was changed for Swansea. She arrived off Mumbles on 15 November 1926 her plates red hot and twenty foot flames shooting from the fore-hold. Tugs fought the flames but the fire was extinguished only after scuttling the ship. The cargo was discharged and the vessel refloated.
The CRANSTONE was scuttled in Swansea Bay to extinguish the fire in her cargo of lignite.
Sketty and Brynmill in the background.
CRANSTONE almost submerged at high water.
GLORIA This ketch was fishing in Carmarthen Bay on 6 December 1927 when a gale blew in. Shelter was sought at Rhossili but she was swamped and sank at her anchors. The crew were helped ashore by a party of auxiliary coastguards.
CAREW CASTLE Returning to Swansea from a fishing trip on Thursday 31 October 1929 this steam trawler stranded near Culver Hole. She was badly holed and the engine room flooded. When the tide ebbed the crew were able to walk ashore. The vessel became a total loss.
The Gower cliffs viewed from the trawler CAREW CASTLE stranded at Port Eynon.
MUMBLES On 25 February 1931 this tug was returning to Swansea after assisting the disabled tanker British Motorist. In fog and driving rain she stranded on the west side of Oxwich Point and became a total loss.
The tug MUMBLES stranded and wrecked on Oxwich Point.
BEN BLANCHE Bound from Dundrum to Swansea with 150 tons of potatoes, she went ashore at Paviland in very thick weather soon after midnight on 18 December 1933. The crew abandoned in the boats and were picked up off shore by Mumbles Lifeboat.
ROCHE CASTLE On the evening of 10 January 1937 this steam trawler was returning to Swansea when she went ashore near Paviland. Rhossili L.S.A. company got a line aboard and the breeches buoy rigged. Two men attempted to get into the breeches and one fell to his death. The rest of the crew were quickly brought ashore. The Rhossili men were presented with the Board of Trade Wreck Shield for this outstanding rescue carried out in very difficult circumstances.
The trawler ROCHE CASTLE wrecked at Paviland.
The Roche Castle the morning after the rescue of her crew.
GLANRHYD Exactly where this vessel was lost we do not know. There was a very heavy gale on Saturday 15 January 1938 which caused a good deal of damage along the coast of Wales. The next day two bodies were found on Rhossili beach and a ship's boats came ashore at Port Eynon and Oxwich. The boats were from the London registered, but Swansea owned, collier Glanrhyd, which had sailed from Newport on the 14th with coal duff for Manchester. Owen L. Harries, of the owners, identified one of the bodies as that of Norman Seawert the vessel's master. Over the next few days a further six bodies were recovered along the coast between Slade (Port Eynon Bay) and Whitford. An inquiry held by the Wreck Commissioner concluded that the ship had probably been overwhelmed by exceptionally large seas, and foundered off shore possibly in the vicinity of the Helwick lightship. All seventeen members of the crew died.