Shipwrecks

I have been a close witness to three shipwrecks, all very different. Each was shocking, though none more so than the first, when my Coastguard colleagues and I could do little except stare in horror at an upturned boat with its rudder sticking into the air and, later, carry out what we knew was a hopeless coast search for three of the four crew.

On 20th July 2009 the clam dredger Aquila turned over in the minch to the north of Ardnamurchan having fouled her gear on a reef. Although she foundered quickly all the crew managed to get clear but three of them subsequently lost their lives. The one who survived did so thanks to a fine example of seamanship by the solo skipper of a yacht which came to help.

This picture was taken in the September, after she had been towed closer to Ardnamurchan's north shore pending salvage. This link to the Kilchoan Diary gives details of the incident following the MAIB report a year later.

On 17th September 2012 a number of jahazis, the small cargo-carrying dhows of the East African coast, were heading in to Bagamoyo. One of them struck a sandbar and, as we watched from the shore, sank very quickly, throwing the crew and passengers into the sea. Fortunately, several other jahazis were quick to reach the scene and, as best we could tell, everyone was rescued.

It was an inexplicable accident. As can be seen, surf was breaking across the sandbar so the skipper must have been well aware of the danger. One can only imagine that he thought his boat's draft was shallow enough to get her across.

This photo was taken at 0545 on the wet and windy morning of 18th February 2015 very shortly after the stranding of the 7,000 tonne bulk carrier Lysblink Seaways on the south coast of Ardnamurchan. The main cause of the stranding, as can be seen in a summary of the MAIB report on the Kilchoan Diary, was that the officer of the watch, who was alone on the bridge and had been drinking, had fallen asleep.

What was so shocking about the accident with the Lysblink Seaways was that this was the third such stranding at the northern end of the Sound of Mull in fifteen years, all for very similar reasons. The photo above is almost identical to....

....this one of the Lysfoss, which occurred almost directly opposite the site of the Lysblink Seaway's stranding.

There were no casualties in any of these strandings but it was a miracle that there wasn't a major pollution tragedy in one of Scotland's most pristine waters, particularly as the Lysblink Seaways missed a skerry in the middle of the Sound by a few metres while travelling at full speed.