Wooler - a general history

Completed August 1891; Official No. 98969: Code Letters MGSP.

Owners: 1891 George Steel, William J Young & Co. (AS Cole) London (bought for £26,960)

Masters: 1893-94 T Leisk: 1898-9 Arthur S Cole.

Wooler left Barry Dock, Cardiff on 31 December 1898 bound for Las Palmas with a cargo of 2,792 tons of coal & a crew of 23. On 1 January a heavy gale sprung up with very heavy seas. At about 11.30pm the foreward deck on the port side was broken by the force of the waves & the hatchway was forced partly down into the hold. Attempts were made to patch the hole with tarpaulins but this was unsuccessful so the master decided to make for Falmouth. The vessel continued to take on water & began to settle down by the head so that she refused to answer to her helm. All hands, some who had sustained serious injuries, stood by the boats but before they could leave at about 5.15am on 2 January she was overwhelmed by a huge wave from forward & she foundered off the coast of Portugal. The boatswain & four able seamen managed to right one of the boats. One of the men, a native of Mauritius, died & the other four were in the open boat without provisions until picked up about 30 miles off Ushant on 4 January by SSLoch Etive & landed at Gibraltar. After spending three weeks in hospital with malnutrition & exposure the three Germans & an Austrian boarded the Australian steamer Ophir & were landed at Plymouth. The inquiry found that the support to the hatchway was iron stanchions 22 feet long by about 3 ½ inch diameter with no other support throughout that length. It was thought that the stanchions had bent under the pressure of the water & the deck yielding in consequence causing the vessel to take on water & founder. 19 lives lost.

Lives lost January 1899:

13 non-British crew

Black, 2^nd engineer, Hartlepool

Bulster, 2^nd officer, Plymouth

Cole, Arthur S, master, London

Fairweather, chief engineer, Manor Park

Goust, 3^rd engineer, Forest Gate

Storm, chief officer, Hartlepool

Survivors January 1898:

Redding, able seaman

Tomlyanrne, able seaman

Schesman, able seaman

Schnitzler, Albert, boatswain

Related items :