Trawler ship wrecks at Thurso

[the nomad]

Does anyone remember the two trawlers that ran aground at Thurso East, one got stuck and the other tried to help and ended up stuck as well. What were the names? Anyone got any pictures of them?

I was telling my kids that I remember climbing onto one of them when I was young and very stupid, creepy!!

[peter macdonald]

A BRACE OF TRAWLERS
A Belgian trawler with rope around the prop was being towed by a second trawler through a westerly gale. At Scrabster divers had been alerted to cut away the ropes from the prop. Ships need props as brakes so, to enter harbour, a casualty ship will usually be lashed alongside the functioning ship. In the bay the cold and tired crews of the De Haal and Massabielle from Ostend were lashing the trawlers together.

During gales the Coastguard then employed Coast-Watchers who occupied the wee white huts on the cliff edge. The man at Victoria Walk, between Scrabster and Thurso, saw the two trawlers heading for Thurso, (the chart then marked Thurso River as a harbour) and drifting while having difficulty getting their vessels lashed together. He informed the HQ at Wick. He was told, "Call back in half an hour".

At the HQ all was not well. An officer had been called for promotion interview and forgotten that he had agreed to stand in as Officer-in-charge that night. (He got his promotion). An untrained Coast-Watcher was called in and, as the gale increased, was soon swamped by calls from all over. He called out the Chief, who leapt into his car but soon ran out of fuel, so played no further part that night.

The Watcher at Victoria Walk duly reported to Wick that the two trawlers had been aground at Thurso East for 20 minutes. The Watcher at HQ managed to call out the teams of Auxiliary Coastguards and also two off-duty Officers who dashed to the Landrover which is always ready in the garage just in front of the trailer carrying the gear. They reached Thurso before they remembered that the trailer was not coupled. I leapt into duffel coat and wellies but was surprised to find the Scrabster Rocket Shed in darkness and squinted through the window to see if I was late and the gear gone. The gear was there. Bill Deans then arrived and he drove to the Police Station to get the key.

We had not then been issued with Landrovers and relied on the lorry provided by Highland Buses, so I drove to the garage to speed them up. The bus garage was brightly lit but the emergency driver, "permanently available", was not to be found. Warm tea stood on the table so I shouted and banged on the buses and thought about the Marie Celeste mystery. I managed to find the phone number of the manager who agreed to call out a driver. This seemed to me to lack urgency but the manager would not drive the lorry himself or allow me to drive. Much later the driver appeared, uniformed, freshly shaved, quite unable to understand my urgency. (Later it transpired that the "emergency driver" was observing events from Thurso harbour, unaware that he was a key participant).

We loaded the lorry with the gear, reached the long soggy field in Thurso East, our headlamps sweeping the bogged-down school bus used by the Scarfskerry team, but getting stuck in the mud ourselves before reaching the stuck lorry used by the John O’Groats team. The gale screamed in our faces as we looked over the sea bank. Coastguard searchlights lit up the foaming waves. The wreck scene was made dramatic by a fire on the wing bridge of one trawler. This was an attempt by the crew to draw attention to their plight. As a wave receded the whole keel could be seen resting on the slate and equally often the deck was swept by solid sea, so their alarm was understandable. The other trawler was high and dry. Our parachute flares gave us about 3 seconds of illumination before being blown far inland briefly lighting up the fields and bogged-down lorries.

The Scrabster divers, seeing their job heading for Thurso rocks, were first on the scene by an hour or two and had tensioned one of the ship’s cables so the crew could crawl down the cable hand -over- hand. The crew would not wait for our breeches-buoy so all we could do was to stabilise the shore end of the cable and assist the crew through the surf. The divers clung to the surging cable in the deeper surf and all got ashore uninjured.

Moral?

1/ Sort out transport: later Scrabster was allocated a Landrover.
2/ Sort out the organisation.
3/ Keep all fuel tanks full, even private cars.

Report was by Geoff Leet

[johno]

Does anyone remember the two trawlers that ran aground at Thurso East, one got stuck and the other tried to help and ended up stuck as well. What were the names? Anyone got any pictures of them?

I was telling my kids that I remember climbing onto one of them when I was young and very stupid, creepy!!
YEA, i recall the trawler,s the one in Thurso it did look eerie like a ghost ship. funny though i did nt have that same feeling about the one that came right into the beach at Reiss. dont know how they got rid of that one, i left Wick about then. remember you could even see it from the main road.

:lol:

[Errogie]

Apparently they started of in this country then failed some sort of seaworthiness test before being sold to the Belgians.
Scotty Taylor from Thurso bought the wrecks and salvaged them for scrap.
I also heard there were some pretty smelly fish left in the hold!