Hundreds of sailing ships have been wrecked in the Bristol Channel - and not all of them by nature. Draw an imaginary line from Lundy Island off Devon to Caldey Island in South Wales, and you have the Bristol Channel. It's that stretch of water which runs from where the heavy Atlantic rollers crash against the Devon coast to north of Bristol, where the salt sea is overwhelmed by the fresh flows of the Severn and the Wye. And at one time it was one of the most dangerous places on earth.
In the days of sail, a sixth of all ships either sank at sea or were driven on shore. Many of those were in the Bristol Channel, where winds and waves travelling unhindered from Newfoundland drove hundreds of hapless craft on to the Devon and Welsh coasts.
The Channel saw nothing as dramatic as the sinking of the Titanic, but far more lives were lost here over the centuries. In 1703, for instance, two transatlantic ships were sunk, six badly damaged and three naval vessels driven on shore near Avonmouth by a great storm, while 22 Bristol Customs men were drowned when their boat went down in a storm two years later. In 1760, 68 men just grabbed by the Press Gang drowned when the naval tender Caesar sank.
But the worst Channel disaster ever was in 1799 when the naval sloop HMS Weazel was driven on to rocks near Braunton, and all 106 people on board ( including one illicit woman ) were drowned.
The great waves of the open Atlantic and the heavy westerly or south westerly winds have always been a problem. So have the immense tides ( the second highest rise and fall in the world ), their speed and ferocity, the huge sand and mud banks which the currents build and move around, and the terrible swirling races in notorious spots like Bideford Bar and Cefn Sidan Sands.
It's no wonder that the rocky stretch from Bridgwater Bay to Hartland Point, so wild and beautiful from the land, was known to sailors as The Cruel Coast. And it's not surprising that so many ships and so many men have met their deaths there, from the days when Bristol was the greatest port in the land to modern times.
The following are some of the more famous wrecks, none as yet made into a feature film, but each with their own drama and human tragedy...
Frolic - In 1830, the General Steam Navigation Company of Bristol set up a new mail service between Bristol, Milford Haven and Tenby In March 1831, the paddle steamer Frolic left Tenby for Bristol and was never seen again. Only wreckage and the bodies of her passengers were washed ashore on the Glamorgan coast. No one knows what happened or how many died ( there was no passenger list ), but the state of the bodies suggested it was not a sudden disaster and that the Frolic's engines may have failed in a gale.
The body of the captain was found lashed to the rigging with a small boy, and a young woman was discovered with a child wrapped in her arms. It is thought that close on 80 people died in the wreck.
The City of Bristol - A paddle steamer used on the regular Bristol-Ireland run, she left Waterford in November 1840, bound for home and loaded with pigs, bullocks, grain and a few passengers. A gale struck as she reached Pembrokeshire, and the ship was driven on to Rhossili Sands. The gale worsened and the ship began to break up. A huge wave swept most of the travellers overboard and a second wave took the rest. just two people survived.
The Caledonia - The Caledonia was a 200 ton brig carrying wheat from Odessa for Gloucester in September 1843. On September 7th a fierce gale pushed her on to the rocks near Morwenstow, Cornwall. just one crew member survived - the rest were buried in Morwenstow churchyard.
But in 1957, a bottle was washed ashore at Portledge Mouth, Devon, which contained a perfectly preserved letter from a sailor on the Caledonia. In it, he gave what he believed was the location of gold and ivory from the Jenny, a Bristol schooner wrecked off Lundy in 1797. He never knew the ivory had already been found, although the gold is still lost. The Caledonia's figurehead is still preserved in Morwenstow; the bottle and letter are on display in the Portledge Hotel.
The Forrest Hall - The Forrest Hall disaster is more notable for the rescue effort than the actual shipwreck. In January 1899, a tremendous gale lashed the north Devon coast. But when the Forrest Hall was reported in trouble, the seas were too rough to launch the Lynmouth lifeboat, so the crew decided to haul the boat all the way to Porlock - 12 miles up and down some of the steepest hills in Britain.
The 3.5 ton lifeboat was hauled by 16 horses on a 10 hour journey where narrow lanes meant that at times it had to be manoeuvred by hand - it took a further hour and a half to reach the Forrest Hall which had lost its rudder. Tugs arrived and starting towing the ship to Barry - so the lifeboat went too, in case it was needed.
By the time they reached South Wales, they hadn't eaten or slept for 24 hours. After a night in a hotel, the lifeboat travelled home in triumph, with a welcome tow for part of the journey.
The Mumbles Lifeboat - In 1947, in a gale which was ferocious even by Bristol Channel standards, the steamship Santampa was in serious trouble in Swansea Bay The Mumbles lifeboat was launched and was lost to sight in heavy seas. She was never seen again. The Santampa went aground off Sker Point and began to break up. None of the crew of 31 survived. Four hundred and fifty yards away was the wreckage of the Mumbles lifeboat. The whole crew of eight had perished, too.
The Green Ranger - This Fleet Auxiliary tanker was driven on to a rocky coast near Hartland Point in 1962 in a Force 10 storm. A destroyer from Milford Haven joined lifeboat-men in searching for the ship in virtually nil visibility. In the end, after 15 hours Herculean effort, the whole crew was hauled off the ship and up a 400ft cliff by members of the Life Saving Company...
The Avon and City Docks - There have been plenty of wrecks along the Avon between Avonmouth and the city docks but usually due to the steep mud-banks, tight bends and 36ft tidal rise and fall.
In 1878, the schooner Gipsy was grounded by Block Rock, and blocked the river to all traffic. The passengers and crew got to shore safely but when attempts were made to move the Gipsy, she suddenly snapped in two. Thousands of spectators watched as hundreds of men took the ship apart and widened the river channel so trapped vessels could pass. The remains of the Gipsy were then dynamited.
Another, more recent disaster was the collision of the Bristol City, Sappho, Peursam and New York City in thick fog in 1929. The four ships were driven on to the mud where they stuck. All were moved within 24 hours and the only casualty was a spectator who fell in the water and was drowned.
Looting - But the waterways between the West of England and Wales also had an infamous record for deliberately causing shipwrecks and looting, right up to the present day residents of the channel coast on both sides who deliberately lured ships on to rocks or plundered those already helpless.
There is undeniable evidence to prove that the plundering of vessels did go on to a considerable extent along most of the Bristol Channel shores; says marine historian Graham Smith. -Tales of wrecking are deeply embedded in the folklore of the Bristol Channel coasts.
Writer Charles Kingsley recorded that the wild coast dwellers of North Devon regarded wrecks as theirs by divine right - but that fishermen often risked their lives by protecting survivors from plundering farm workers.
Kingsley's brother, the vicar of Ilfracombe, also recorded how a ship was lured on to the rocks by a lantern tied to a donkey's tail to give the impression of other vessels anchored between the ship and the shore.
But a lot of the more lurid stories may be closer to legend than truth. Did the men of Ilfracombe earn the nickname Coombe Sharks by murdering the crew of a wrecked ship and stealing the cargo - or did 16 local men die in a brave attempt to save the sailors ? Take your pick from the differing accounts which have survived. Yet in 1926, a German schooner called the Elsa Kuchike was grounded at Westward Ho! and was looted by hundreds of locals. A contemporary report reads: They behaved in a most disgraceful manner, pillaging all they could lay their hands on, even personal photographs.
And as recently as 1982, a Panamanian tanker went ashore off Hartland Point. Within hours, hundreds of people had driven to the area from all over the West Country and the ship was stripped, often at great risk to the looters.
In earlier centuries, many half-drowned survivors were murdered by coast dwellers because of the belief that the wreck was public property if no one on hoard was still alive. In north Devon, they talked of a good wreck season in the same terms as a good mackerel season, and goods salvaged were regarded as a gift from God. Looting was an ancient tradition - an account in 1358 tells of how the cargo rapidly vanished when a wine ship was wrecked off Portishead.
In 1737, a Bristol bound trader laden with tobacco, sugar and cotton, was wrecked off Nash Point, South Wales; -In next to no time, there were 300 to 400 people from all parts of the country assembled on the beach every night to pillage the cargo, reported the local Customs Collector. They even set fire to the hull to get at the old nails. The Swansea militia were ordered out to arrest the worst gang from a little town called Bridgend. Most of them were shoemakers.
In 1738, a Bristol ship carrying soap and candles went ashore at Saunton Sands. The captain knew what would happen, so made a deal with locals to share the cargo. When revenue officers searched the area, there wasn't a candle or bar of soap to be found. Bristol ships also feared Cefn Sudan Sands off West Wales where the locals were known as Gwyr y Bwelli Bach ( Men of the Little Hatchets ) after the axes they used to attack wrecks - and the wrecked....
