Paul – Page 6 – Messages from the Sea

In Frail Boats

Found 15 May 1899, Portage Bay, Alaska.

In a bottle, on a Northern Pacific Steamship memorandum form used by a Hong Kong shipping agent:

S.S. Pelican.
Latitude 50 north, longitude 175 west.
The ship is sinking. We are leaving her in frail boats. Please report us.
M.T. PATTERSON, Chief Officer.
Port Townsend, Wash., U.S.A.

The Pelican was a Glasgow-built Northern Pacific Steamship Company steamer. It left Port Gamble, Washington, for Taku, Beijing, on 3 October 1897 and was never seen again. The ship was listed by Lloyd’s as missing on 9 February 1898. It was thought to have sunk during a gale.

Then in September 1911, a schooner named Saucy Lass returned from the Bering Sea to its home port of Victoria, British Columbia, with news of the Pelican. Islanders on Akutan, one of the Alaskan Aleutian Islands, had found four skeletons lying on the rocks just above the water line. The skeletons appeared to be wearing Northern Pacific Steamship uniforms. It was speculated that the unfortunate crew of the Pelican had managed to reach shore, “only to perish of exhaustion”.

[San Francisco Call, 31 May 1899]

Crew On Half Whack

Found 10 March 1900, Parrot Bay, West Indies.

In a corked bottle:

Ship Samoena, of Greenock, latitude 21 ½ degrees north, longitude 37 degrees west, May 19th, 1899, from Portland, Oregon, to Queenstown, for orders; 130 days out, and no provisions aboard. Crew on half ‘whack’, living on cargo of wheat and do not expect to ever reach port. If this is picked up, please send word to E.S. Fardon, 11, Agnew-street, Lytham, Lancashire, England.

The message was delivered to the Lytham address on 19 April 1900 with a postscript: “Found by Robert Higgs, overseer of Parrot Bay, on the beach at S.C., on the 10th of March, 1900.” S.C. suggests South Carolina, or perhaps the Seychelles, although newspapers said the message was “cast ashore at Parrot Bay, West Indies”. “Whack” was a sailor’s food ration, so “half whack” meant half rations.

Further curiosity arises from the fact that the coordinates given in the seaman’s message place this Scottish ship bound from the west coast of America to New Zealand in the middle of the Atlantic. Could the ship have been sailing from Portland, Maine, or have been returning from Queenstown to Greenock?

What is known is that the Samoena had left Portland on Christmas Eve 1898, encountering a heavy storm, then drifting for several months. When provisions ran out, the crew ground up the ship’s cargo of wheat with a coffee mill to provide sustenance. In a moment of despair, in May 1899, able seaman Edward Stanley Fardon wrote this note and dropped it into the sea.

Almost a year later, when the message arrived in Lytham, it was received by one Edward Stanley Fardon. Several weeks after being given up as lost, the Samoena had arrived home safely with all hands. Fardon, who it was reported was no longer a seaman, was said to be “one amongst the few men who have been privileged to read, after many days, his ‘last message’.”

[Lancashire Evening Post, 8 May 1900]

Looking Out For a Sail

Found September 1871, Gulf of Mexico.

Written in pencil:

Off East Coast of Brazil, Jan. 21, 1871. — This is to certify that we three are the only survivors of the English ship Lilian, lost on the night of the 15th of this month. We have now been drifting in an open boat for six days, suffering hunger, thirst, and hardships which none but those that has experienced can illustrate. We have been looking out for a sail since the ship went down. What became of the captain and the rest of the men God can only tell.
JOHN THOMAS, Second Mate.
MICHAEL DOOLEY, Seaman.
JOHN DUGER, Seaman.

Some newspapers gave the Lillian three Ls. “It may be a hoax,” one said, “but if not it is of so much importance as to be thought worthy of publication.”

[Morning Advertiser, 2 September 1871]

Six Inches Per Hour

Found 17 June 1879, Tayport Harbour, Fife.

In a bottle:

In latitude 58.20 N.; in longitude 1.20 E. Three days without water; ship making 6 inches per hour; cargo shifted; intends to leave the ship the first opportunity. Mary Ann, Portsoy. John Cumming, mate. — 25/5/79.

The given coordinates suggest the Mary Ann was around 150 miles east of its home port of Portsoy.

[Dundee Evening Telegraph, 18 June 1879]

Shipwrecked On Sandbank

Found February 1878, in a burn near the Firth of Forth, Scotland.

In a bottle:

Annaberga, of Plymouth. December 11th, 1877. Andrew Raine, Joseph Malley and Jules Kahm, survivors. Shipwrecked on sandbank. May God have mercy on our souls.

Even the location at which this message was found is a mystery. According to the Sheffield Independent, the message was picked up “in the Parkburn Forth”. The Sheffield Daily Telegraph said it was washed up “at Parkburn, Forth”. Other newspapers stated the location was “near Dunfermline”. Parkburn does not appear on maps, but it was most likely a burn or small river near to the Firth of Forth. Confusingly, some newspapers said the name of the vessel was Annaborga not Annaberga, the home port was Liverpool not Plymouth, and the survivors’ names were Andrew Paine, Joseph Dally and Jules Kupin. Unsurprisingly, no further record of the vessel or its crew could be found.

[Sheffield Independent and Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 4 February 1878]

No More Whisky

Found August 1912, Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, western France.

In a bottle, on Prince Line headed notepaper:

Ship in distress. No more whisky on board. Please refill bottle and return it.

As gleefully recounted by Singapore’s Straits Times, this light-hearted message was “an example of real distress at sea” — just four months after the sinking of the Titanic. It was apparently found by a French bather at Saint-Brevin-les-Pins, near Saint-Nazaire, who summoned a gendarme, then the chief of police, and then the mayor, none of whom could translate it from English. The message was hurriedly carried, by the bather still in his swimming costume, to the mayor’s office, where a traveller’s phrase book failed to help. It was eventually translated by the British vice-consulate. The Prince Line was a major steamship company that had been founded in the north east of England.

[Straits Times, 18 September 1912]

We Are In Great Distress

Found 5 March 1861, at South Shields.

In an oil bottle, written in pencil on a parchment leaf from a pocket book:

Feb 8, 1861. Brig Juno, of Yarmouth. Dear Friends. — We are in great distress. We have been working at the pumps night and day. When you find this card we are no more. Our fore and main masts are gone. — J.F.

The Dublin Evening Packet published this message under the headline “Melancholy Intelligence”.

[Dublin Evening Packet, 8 March 1861]

Washed Away During Gale

Found 26 September 1895, in the harbour at Poole, Dorset.

In a bottle, on a foreign telegram form:

Owner, ship Sarah Jane, Liverpool. Ship sprung a leak on 17th August off St. Ives. Ship sinking, and boats washed away during gale of 2nd inst. — James Goodenough, 20 New-street, Isle of Dogs.

This message was fished out of the harbour by a revenue cutter. The writing was described as being “in clear running hand” and “evidently that of a well-educated person”. Police enquiries found there was no New Street in the Isle of Dogs. A Board of Trade inspector identified a vessel named Sarah Jane that traded between Birkenhead, across the Mersey from Liverpool, and Millwall, on the Isle of Dogs. However, there were no reports of that vessel having encountered difficulties, so the message was labelled by the press as a “cruel hoax”.

[Aberdare Times, 5 October 1895]

Cannot Get Away

Found 8 February 1877, Birsay, Orkney.

In a bottle secured to a lifebuoy:

St. Kilda, January 22, 1877. The Pete Mubrovacki [sic], of Austria, 886 tons, was lost near this island on the 17th inst. The captain and eight of the crew are in St. Kilda, and have no means of getting off. Provisions are scarce. Written by J, Sands, who came to the island in the summer, and cannot get away. The finder of this will much oblige by forwarding this letter to the Austrian Consul in Glasgow.

The Austrian barque Peti Dubrovacki left Glasgow for New York on 11 January 1877. It capsized in bad weather six days later, around eight miles west of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides. Seven crewmembers died, and nine survived to reach the remote archipelago. The survivors were taken in by St Kilda’s residents, of whom there were around 75, and offered a share of their dwindling rations, mostly consisting of grain seeds.

On 30 January, fearing starvation, John Sands placed a message in a bottle, tied it to a lifebuoy from the Peti Dubrovacki, rigged up a small sail, and placed his “St Kilda mailboat” into the sea. Nine days later, it washed up at Orkney, more than 200 miles away. On 22 February, the navy gunboat Jackal arrived at St Kilda, the bad weather subsiding for just long enough to allow the rescue of the Austrian seamen and the delivery of biscuits and oatmeal for the residents.

John Sands was a Scottish journalist and artist. He returned to the mainland “barefoot and penniless” on board the Jackal, and later published a book about his experiences on the island, Life on St Kilda or Out of this World.

[Buckingham Advertiser, 17 February 1877, and John Sands, Life on St Kilda or Out of this World]

Fearful Hurricane

Found 28 April 1880, at junction of rivers Weaver and Mersey, near Runcorn.

In a bottle, written very legibly in pencil:

H.M.S. Atalanta, March 16. Fearful hurricane, dismasted, going down fast, off Lizard. H. Smith, boy.

The Atalanta was a British Navy training frigate, commanded by Captain Francis Stirling. The ship left Bermuda for Portsmouth carrying 281 men and boys on 31 January 1880. It was never heard from again. In April, the Navy sent the Channel Fleet to search for the Atalanta. No trace was found, and it was thought the ship must have sunk in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle, where heavy weather had been reported at the time of the disappearance. However, the Lizard, mentioned in this message, is a peninsula — notorious for shipwrecks — in southern Cornwall. If the message was genuine, the Atalanta had sailed for some 3,200 miles from Bermuda, and had sunk with 250 miles of its destination.

On 5 May 1880, a small piece of wood was found at Dalkey near Dublin bearing a short message: “HMS Atalanta going down, with all hands on board, in latitude 48.60. Signed J. Steward.” The given latitude runs around 50 miles south of the Lizard. There were four Smiths on board the Atalanta, although none with the initial H. One RW Smith was named among the list of the missing as “boy writer”. There was no one named J Steward on board, although there was a JJ Cooper listed as “boy steward”.

[Liverpool Mercury, 29 April 1880, London Evening Standard, 26 April 1880 and Portsmouth Evening News, 8 May 1880]