Sarah Anderson was a British barque built in
Liverpool in 1865. The ship was wrecked on 17 October 1886 en route from
Coquimbo,
Chile to
Fleetwood,
Lancashire when it ran aground on rocks near
Trebarwith Strand
Trebarwith Strand ( kw, Trebervedh Sian; locally sometimes shortened to ''The Strand'') is a section of coastline located near the coastal settlement of Trebarwith on the north coast of Cornwall, England, UK, south of Tintagel. It has 800m of san ...
,
Cornwall.
The ship
Sarah Anderson was built in 1885 by the company
Thomas Royden and Sons
Thomas Royden and Sons was a shipbuilding company in Liverpool which operated from 1818 until 1893.
Company history
Thomas Royden, a master carpenter, opened a shipyard on Baffin Street on the west side of Queens Dock, Liverpool in 1818. After ...
of
Liverpool. The ship had three masts and an iron hull, measured 52.7 m long and weighed 589 tons. The crew of eleven was returning from Chile with a cargo of ore. The ship put in at
Falmouth, Cornwall to await orders before leaving for Fleetwood on 13 October 1886. Aside from the sailors, there were four passengers; a woman and her two children who boarded in Chile, as well as the captain’s wife.
The wreck
The ship was caught in a fierce storm on 17 October 1886 and began to drift towards the north coast of Cornwall. Each day, Captain William Pucksey held short church services on deck and the crew was observed praying on the poop deck on the morning of the wreck. As the storm worsened, the crew cut away the masts and cast the anchors in an attempt to save the ship. Meanwhile the
Port Isaac lifeboat tried unsuccessfully for several hours to reach them. As the ship was over 300 m from shore, every attempt to reach it with rocket-fired
breeches buoy also failed. Just before midday, the ship struck Otterham Rocks, a stack also known as Gull Rock. There appeared to be an explosion as the deck of the ship blew up, sending a great spout of water into the air. The ship then foundered and disappeared beneath the water, killing all on board.
See also
*
List of shipwrecks of Cornwall (1881–1890)
The List of shipwrecks of Cornwall (1881–1890) lists the ships which sank on or near the coasts of mainland Cornwall in that period. The list includes ships that sustained a damaged hull, which were later refloated and repaired.
1881 Janu ...
*
References
{{Reflist
1886 in the United Kingdom
Cornish shipwrecks
Maritime incidents in October 1886
Tintagel