SS ''Mahratta'' was a steamship owned by

Brocklebank Line The Brocklebank Line (formally named Thos. and Jno. Brocklebank) was an English shipping line that operated in the 19th and 20th centuries. Daniel Brocklebank founded a shipyard in Whitehaven in 1785, and expanded in the following years into ope ...

which was launched in 1891 and ran aground on the

Goodwin Sands Goodwin Sands is a sandbank at the southern end of the North Sea lying off the Deal coast in Kent, England. The area consists of a layer of approximately depth of fine sand resting on an Upper Chalk platform belonging to the same geologi ...

in 1909.

History

SS ''Mahratta'' was launched on 19 November 1891. Its name is an old spelling of

Maratha The Marathi people (Marathi: मराठी लोक) or Marathis are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are indigenous to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-Aryan language. Maharashtra was formed as a M ...

. In 1900 she served as a troopship in connection with the

Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sou ...

Shipwreck

On 9 April 1909 (Good Friday), the 5,639 ton liner ''Mahratta'' stuck in the Goodwin Sands, with a heavy cargo, a crew of 90 and 17 passengers. The ''Mahratta'' was homeward bound to

London London is the capital and 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 down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

from

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

with a mixed cargo including

jute Jute is a long, soft, shiny bast fiber that can be spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', which is in the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ''Corchorus olit ...

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly ''Oryza glaberrima ''Oryza glaberrima'', commonly known as African rice, is one of the two domesticated rice species. It was first domesticated and grown i ...

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Thailand, Malaysia, and ...

and

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northe ...

. She ran aground on the Fawk Spit of the

in calm weather and stuck fast. The next day, lifeboats were launched and the majority of the passengers were rescued by the

Deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, ...

lifeboat. Although two tugs were sent from

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

, it was impossible to pull ''Mahratta'' free. ''Mahratta'' broke in two the day after this. The three passengers aboard at the time included one female passenger who had refused to leave as she had a

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...

with her which would have to go into quarantine if rescued. The Sands did not break the ''Mahratta'''s back for 24 hours, allowing time for locals to help unload its cargo. Many of them demanded their right of salvage, and when customs officers searched their houses they were physically roughed up. The westerly wind increased in strength, and as cargo was salvaged from No.4 and 5 holds the ship listed making further salvage more difficult. A

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for International Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

inquiry found that the ship had run aground because the pilot had failed to recognise the Gull Light and then took an incorrect course. A second ship named ''Mahratta'' ran aground on the Goodwin Sands in 1939, less than a mile away from the site of the wreck of the first ''Mahratta''.

''Pride of Canterbury'' ferry incident

On 31 January 2008, the roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry '' Pride of Canterbury'' operated by

P&O Ferries P&O Ferries is a British shipping company that operates ferry, ferries from United Kingdom to Ireland, and to Continental Europe (France, Belgium and the Netherlands). The company was created in 2002 through mergers and acquisitions within P&O ...

struck the wreck of ''Mahratta'' while manoeuvering in severe weather into a holding position in The Downs. The ferry suffered extensive damage to her port propeller and had to be assisted to berth in Dover. It is not clear whether the wreck site named in the

MAIB maib (BC „Moldova Agroindbank” S.A.) is Moldova’s largest commercial bank and lender. Background MAIB started operations in 1991 as a joint-stock company by taking over assets and clients from the Soviet-era Agroprom Bank. Today MAIB is the ...

report is that of the first ''SS Mahratta'' or the later vessel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahratta (1892) Shipwrecks in the Downs Schooners Maritime incidents in 1909 Merchant ships of the United Kingdom 1891 ships Ships built in Belfast Ships built by Harland and Wolff