The SS ''Fernebo'' was a Swedish cargo ship that was built in 1912. She was wrecked off

Cromer Cromer ( ) is a coastal town and civil parish on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk. It is north of Norwich, north-northeast of London and east of Sheringham on the North Sea coastline. The local government authorities are Nor ...

, Norfolk, in England on 9 January 1917, being split in two by a boiler explosion or a German sea mine. Her chief engineer was killed but the remaining 17 crew members were rescued by onlookers and the Cromer lifeboat, commanded by

Henry Blogg Henry George Blogg"Henry Blogg, the Greatest of the Lifeboatmen", Jolly, C., Pub: Poppyland Publishing, new edition 2002, GC BEM (6 February 1876 – 13 June 1954) was a lifeboatman from Cromer on the north coast of Norfolk, England, and the ...

. Part of her wreck remains on the beach at Cromer but is only visible at extremely low tides.

Construction and early career

The ''Fernebo'' was built in 1912 at the

Oskarshamn Shipyard Oskarshamn Shipyard is a shipbuilding and repair facility located in Oskarshamn, Sweden. General information The shipyard company was established in 1863, when a dry dock was built in Oskarshamn. About 540 vessels have been built and launched a ...

in Sweden. She was constructed of steel and measured long, wide and deep with . ''Fernebo'' was powered by a three-cylinder

triple expansion A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be tr ...

steam engine driving a single shaft and screw. Her

yard number __NOTOC__ M ...

was 244 and Swedish Official Number was 5361. She was owned by Broström Axel & Son of Sweden and operated under the Swedish registry and with call sign JSTN. In early 1915 she was at Gothenburg, Sweden, where she was used as a depot ship for the holding of part of a load of 40,000 sacks of wheat for export at a time when Swedish neutrality during the First World War was under question.

Wreck

On 9 January 1917 the ''Fernebo'' was travelling from Gävle, Sweden, to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, England, with a cargo of timber. When she was near

Cromer Pier Cromer Pier is a Grade II listed seaside pier in the civil parish of Cromer on the north coast of the English county of Norfolk, due north of the city of Norwich in the United Kingdom. The pier is the home of the Cromer Lifeboat Station and ...

she suffered an explosion that broke the vessel in two and killed her chief engineer Johan Adolf Anderson. The cause of the explosion is unclear; it was attributed to a sea mine laid by a German submarine in newspaper reports of the time, but may also have been a

boiler explosion A boiler explosion is a catastrophic failure of a boiler. There are two types of boiler explosions. One type is a failure of the pressure parts of the steam and water sides. There can be many different causes, such as failure of the safety val ...

. The remaining 17 crew members were divided between the two parts of the ship. Six crew on one part drifted ashore, where they were rescued by a human chain of onlookers. The other 11 crewmen on the second part of the ship remained stranded at sea. The sea was rough and there were north-easterly gale-force winds. The Cromer lifeboat, the ''Louisa Heartwell'', had just returned from assisting a Greek vessel but the boat's coxswain,

, ordered her out to sea again to assist the ''Fernebo''. Blogg and his crew had to launch the boat three times because of the poor conditions but eventually reached the floating portion of the ''Fernebo'' and took off the 11 survivors. The event has been described as "one of Norfolk's most heroic rescues" and the act was recognised by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). Blogg received the RNLI's gold medal and his second coxswain received the institution's silver medal. Blogg also later received the

Empire Gallantry Medal The Medal of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire for Gallantry, known as the Empire Gallantry Medal (EGM), was a British medal awarded for acts of gallantry. Unlike the then existing Sea Gallantry Medal (SGM) (1854), the Albert Meda ...

for the rescue. Blogg became a hero of the lifeboat service, eventually being credited with saving 873 lives, but the rescue of the ''Fernebo'' was "perhaps Mr Blogg's most famous feat". Anderson's body washed up at

Mundesley Mundesley /ˈmʌndz.li/ is a coastal village and a civil parish in the English county of Norfolk. The village is north-north east of Norwich, south east of Cromer and north east of London. The village lies north-north east of the town of Nort ...

, to the east, and he was buried there. A long section of the ''Fernebo'' remains on Cromer's East Beach but is only visible at a combination of extremely low tides and erosion of sand deposits. When it was sighted on 9 January 2020 the last time it had been seen was June 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fernebo 1912 ships Maritime incidents in 1917 Shipwrecks of Norfolk Ships built in Oskarshamn Merchant ships of Sweden