That distinctive headland on the horizon, Kettleness Point, has swallowed ships the way other coastlines swallow litter. Four of them tell you all you need to know about the sea’s manners, which is to say it has none.
Take the Viola, a 1,900-ton steamer bound from Spain to Middleborough with iron ore. Thick fog rolled in, and nobody thought to use the sounding lead. She ran ashore half a mile south of the point in September 1903. Her captain and two mates refused to leave, clinging to a wreck that had already broken its back within a fortnight. Pride, it turns out, floats about as well as an iron hull.
The Wolf Hound had gone the same way in 1896, a trawler out of Hull, undone by fog and rock. Small boat, small mercy.
The Onslow followed in 1911, 2,722 tons of steel snapped in two after four days of futile bailing.
Then there is the Vanland, which manages to be both tragic and grimly theatrical. A German U-boat shelled her in 1917 as she fled towards London with a cargo that included, of all things, undipped matchsticks. She struck the point at the exact moment a torpedo hit her. Six crew died. The Runswick lifeboat Hester Rothschild rescued the remaining eighteen crew, watched, apparently, by the submarine that sank her. The ship burned for a week, before settling quietly on the seabed.
Four wrecks, one headland. Four wrecks, well documented because of their accessibility for diving. There are plenty of others. The sea does not forgive poor visibility, and it never once apologises.
Source: Young, Ron. The Comprehensive Guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast. Volume One (1749-1917). Tempus. 2000.
Leave a Reply