The tranquil waters of Otters Wick hides a tragic history. In the above photo, Black Skerry sits darkly left of centre; just out of shot to the left lies the jagged headland where the steel barque Bohus was lost in April 1924.1Old Haa O Burravoe Museum, 8 June 2026.2Portsmouth Evening News – 29 April 1924. CADET HERO. SWEPT TO DEATH AFTER SAVING FOUR LIVES. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000290/19240429/116/0005
The tragedy came down to a single, stupid mistake. Seeking a bearing in heavy fog, Captain Blume spotted a lighthouse and took it for Fair Isle. Had he timed the light, he would have known better: the flash came every 60 seconds, not every 30. He was at the Out Skerries, 60 miles off course.
The Bohus was no ordinary vessel. Steel-built, rigged as a barque, she carried the sons of German and Austrian nobility on training voyages. When she struck “Da Point o’ da Hatt,” a routine passage became something else entirely.
A young cadet, Josef Anton “Tom” Eberth, lowered himself from the mast and hauled four shipmates from the surf. Going back for a fifth, a mountainous wave took him. His body was recovered the next morning and buried at Mid Yell. His mother, too poor to bring him home, sent a plaque for his grave.
Today a replica of the ship’s figurehead, the “White Wife,” stands at Otterswick. She looks out over the bay where the Bohus broke apart, mere minutes after her captain finally reached the shore. The original figurehead is held at the Burravoe museum.
- 1Old Haa O Burravoe Museum, 8 June 2026.
- 2Portsmouth Evening News – 29 April 1924. CADET HERO. SWEPT TO DEATH AFTER SAVING FOUR LIVES. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000290/19240429/116/0005