The Ellan Vannin was an iron steamship owned by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company. Ellan Vannin is the name of the Isle of Man in Manx . It was launched on April 10, 1860 with the name Mona's Isle . It was mainly used as a combined passenger and cargo ship , which also transported mail , between the Isle of Man and Liverpool . The ship sank in a storm in the Irish Sea on December 3, 1909 . 36 (other sources 35) people were killed.
The ship was built in the Tod and MacGregor shipyard on Meadowside in Glasgow as a paddle wheel steamer with double-sided propulsion. The price of the steamship at the time was £ 10,673 . A tonnage of 339 long tons was specified for the ship at the time of handover . The length of the ship was 63.09 meters. The steam engine gave it a speed of 12 knots. In 1883 the ship underwent extensive renovations at the Westray, Copeland and Co. shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness . The outdated side paddle wheels were removed and the ship got a two-screw drive. On November 16, 1883, it was given the new name Ellan Vannin . After the renovation and a new measurement, the Ellan Vannin is specified with 375 long tons and a speed of up to 12.5 knots. The modernized ship could now transport up to 300 passengers , 50 of them in first class, and had a permanent crew of 14 people. At the time of her loss, the Ellan Vannin was one of the smallest and oldest ships in the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company . Despite her small size and age, she was considered a seaworthy ship and withstood many storms in the Irish Sea that caused other ships to call at a protective port.
The downfall
Captain James Teare
On the morning of December 3, 1909, the Ellan Vannin left Ramsey port shortly after midnight at 1:13 a.m. with a course for Liverpool . There were 15 passengers, 21 crew members, as well as mail and 60 tons of cargo on board. This cargo included sheep , pigs and vegetables . The ship was led by Captain James Teare from Douglas, a skipper with 18 years of experience. During the departure from Ramsey the weather was calm and although the barometer showed falling air pressure, the captain did not expect any serious deterioration in the weather. Around 6:35 a.m., when we reached the Mersey Bar, the weather conditions had unexpectedly deteriorated dramatically. The wind reached force 11 and the waves reached heights of more than six meters. A leak was suspected because the ship was taking water. It sank between the Mersey Bar and buoy Q 1 in front of the Mersey's control channel via the stern . All passengers and the entire crew perished. After the sinking, their masts rose above the surface of the water. Divers who examined the wreck of the ship found that the davits with the lifeboats had already been swung out for launching. A committee of inquiry found that the master could not be blamed for the sinking of the ship and the loss of human life. The cause of the disaster was solely the extreme and unpredictable weather situation. Shortly after the disaster, Mersey dock workers began dismantling the wreck. Because it posed a danger to shipping , it was blown up into small pieces. In January 1910, Captain Teare's body was washed up on the beach at Ainsdale near Southport. His remains were transferred to the Isle of Man. He was buried there. In 1910 a disaster fund was set up to provide for the relatives of the deceased. The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company provided £ 1,000 for each.
Trivia
In 1976, the ship accident famous nationally by a documentary of the BBC , in which the band The Spinners song Ellan Vannin recited by Hugh E. Jones. Since the disaster, the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company has never used the name Ellan Vannin as a ship name again, although the company had a tradition of reusing old ship names.
