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The Cambalu In the early hours of January 30th 1933, the Liverpool steam coaster Cambalu (lower left in the photo) ran aground at Knap Head in dense fog, smashing in her bottom plates and rendering her a total loss. Her crew took to the shipâ??s boat before being picked up after daybreak by the Padstow Lifeboat. Reference:..(UID:12179) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
Another photograph of the Johanna The Johanna soon broke up but her remains still lie near the lighthouse at Hartland Point. Reference:..(UID:12182) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The Avonmore Captain William Corfield was said to have been shipwrecked no less than seven times in his sea career, one of these misfortunes taking place at Morwenstow on September 13, 1869. He was then Master of the Bristol full-rigger Avonmore, outward bound from Cardiff for Montivideo with coal when she met hurricane force winds off the Scillies and was forced back up the Cornish Coast. Capt Corfield ordered the anchors to be let go off Higher Sharpnose but the cables finally parted and the Avonmore piled up on the rocks under Vicarage Cliff, just beneath Parson Robert Stephen Hawkerâ??s celebrated hut. The Bude rocket apparatus was called to the scene, saving Capt Corfield and 14 of his crew but another seven men were swept off the decks in the heavy seas and lost. The shipâ??s owners soon bought another vessel for Capt.Corfield to command, renamed her Avonmore and put her in the South American trade. But she, too, was ill-fated: a few hours after arriving at Huanillos, Chile in May 1877 she was overwhelmed by a tsunami and sank. Corfield was picked up but his wife and three children were drowned, along with many of the crew. Reference:..(UID:12187) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The Elianus Three years later, on June 15th 1936, another Liverpool coaster came to grief just 100 yards away. This was the Elianus, bound from Le Havre to Briton Ferry with scrap iron. Thick fog at night was again the cause, and again the crew saved themselves in their boat, drifting about until dawn and then landing on the Devon/Cornish border at Marsland Mouth. A curious thing happened in the years following these wrecks. Little by little, tidal and wave action moved the bow sections of both the Cambalu and the Elianus towards each other until at last they came to rest together as photograph shows. Reference:..(UID:12180) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The Jenny Jones This peaceful scene on Milford Lawn, Hartland, preserves the memory of a murderous gale in February 1868 in which no less than six ships were lost between Hartland Point and Bude. The figurehead to the left of the lady quietly reading on a garden seat came from the Jenny Jones, a Newport brigantine under command of Capt. Hazell, which was lost with all hands in a Force 11 storm on the grim rocks of Brownspear Point. Up near Hartland Point, a French brigantine, the Souvenance, went ashore and broke up with the loss of three lives. Just over the Cornish border another Frenchman, the lugger Jeune Joseph, came to grief on Higher Sharpnose taking all hands with her. Sixty years later Capt. Hazellâ??s daughter came to visit Hartland and brought with her a poem she had composed, â??A Dirge on the Late Capt. Hazellâ? which had appeared in a Newport newspaper in the year the Jenny Jones was lost. A few lines of this High Victorian lament invoke the horrors of that gale: Out in the terrible dark Out in the raging main Vainly our brother steers his bark Shall neâ??er reach home again Bourne on the pitiless wave Dashed on the rock bound shore The ship goes down to her caverned grave While the storm fiend howls the more Howls like a desert beast Deprived of its bleeding prey For they who sank â??neath the nightâ??s grim frown Their souls to the angels gave Reference:..(UID:12183) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The Johanna, the â??Lastâ? Wreck There is never likely to be a â??lastâ? wreck on Hartlandâ??s shores as long as ships still go to sea, but the most recent casualty arrived on the last day of 1982. The Panamanian-flagged Dutch coaster Johanna made a beeline for Hartland Point and ran ashore around 4:00 a.m., just 400 yards from the lighthouse. There was some mystery as to how she got there â?? the wind and sea were moderate and visibility fair, but soon after she hit the rocks the watchkeepers in the Coast Guard lookout above got busy and scrambled a helicopter from RAF Chivenor to lift off four of the shipâ??s crew. The Johannaâ??s Dutch officers stayed by the ship until taken off by the Clovelly Lifeboat later that morning. The shipâ??s Master decided against attempting any salvage operations, and people began to arrive to see the novel sight. By the time the long Bank Holiday weekend was over, the Johanna was making headlines in the national press. She had been engulfed by hordes of sightseers and â??wreckersâ?, carrying off anything they could grab or wrench from the ship, inspiring the newspapers to shriek â??Old Johanna is Strippedâ?, â??Wreckers Galoreâ? and â??Plundered!â?. Journalists made much of the â??Hartland wreckersâ?, overlooking the fact that all but a handful of them came from elsewhere. Reference:..(UID:12181) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The Katina This photograph shows the crew being interviewed by P.C. Membury at the scene of the wreck. Fortunately the Katina, high and dry at the top of the spring tides, was successfully refloated by the salvage tug Etna a fortnight later and brought round to Clovelly for temporary repairs. Reference:..(UID:12185) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The One that Got Away- The Katina The Greek steamer Katina was a rare survivor of stranding on this iron coast. Bound from Athens for Barry Dock in ballast, she strayed off her course in dense fog on the night of 23 May 1913 and steamed onto the shingle beach below Mansley Cliff. Capt. Syrmas and his crew were able to walk ashore as the tide ran out and later retrieved their possessions in good order, although the captain complained bitterly that his treasured binoculars, a present from the King of Greece, had been stolen after the stranding. Reference:..(UID:12184) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum
The Sjofna The Norwegian steamer Sjofna went ashore just above Welcome Mouth on a stormy, pitch-black night in November 1944. When word got out the Appledore and Padstow lifeboats battled to the scene, the latter succeeding in taking off seven men before her lines parted. The Hartland LSA Company had by now got themselves and their equipment down a sheer 400-foot cliff and began rescue operations. The first man to be put in the breeches buoy was the oldest member of the crew, 59-year-old Hans Petter Hendriksen, who became stuck between ship and shore when the lines fouled. Coast Guard George Pawson and 16-year-old Bude schoolboy Peter Herbert stripped off and struggled out through the icy surf to reach the man, by then unconscious, and bring him ashore. Further rockets were fired from the beach to restore the vital breeches buoy line, the last of these crashing into the shipâ??s wheelhouse, fracturing the captainâ??s leg and setting fire to the shipâ??s cat. Eventually the LSA team rescued all twelve remaining members of the crew. For this service the Hartland LSA Company was awarded the Ministry of Trade Shield for the finest rescue of the year, the Coxâ??n of the Padstow Lifeboat received the RNLIâ??s Silver Medal and his crew the Institutionâ??s Maude Smith Award for their bravery. The Sjofnaâ??s singed cat made a full recovery and found a home in Hartland with Lew Littlejohns, the LSA Companyâ??s â??No.1â?. Reference:..(UID:12186) Supplied by: Hartland Quay Museum