Sauternes (ship)
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The Sauternes was a British steamship that was built in 1922 and sank in the Faroe Islands on December 7, 1941 at around 3:30 p.m.
In the Faroe Islands she is called "Jólaskipið", the "Christmas ship". The originally French ship was named after the town of Sauternes .
There were 25 people on board the Sauternes : 19 crew members, five soldiers and one passenger. They all died when the ship between Fugloy and Svínoy got into distress in a storm . The ship came from Scotland to supply the British garrison of the Faroe Islands with Christmas presents, among other things. There was also a treasure trove of 22,500 Danish kroner on board for payment transactions by the Faroe Islands, which were minted in England due to the war.
Apparently the accident is due to human error , because when Captain W. Smith reported to the British headquarters in Tórshavn on December 6th that they were in the storm in Fugloyarfjørður (the fjord between Fugloy and Svínoy), they thought the speech was there is from the safe harbor of Fuglafjørður further west on the island of Eysturoy . So the Sauternes got the order to anchor where she was. The anchors were lifted too late to avert the fate of being pressed against the Svínoy cliffs. The island's population watched helplessly, and two deployed lifeboats could no longer get to the ship due to the weather conditions.
The six bodies found were buried in Klaksvík . These were:
- George Albert Perris, 34 years old, Captain of the Royal Army Service Corps
- Richard Smith, around 35 years old
- John Daniel McNicol, 21 years
- Robert Ross, around 25 years
- Peter McKenzie Cormack, 21 years old
- unknown man, about 35 years old
The other men of the crew are commemorated on a plaque in London : Captain William Smith, James Currie Carruthers, Donald Chapman, Donald Fraser, John Fanning Grossart, Sydney Horn, Hugh Tanser Jarvis, Henry William John Koven, Michael McCarthy, Tokuzo Mitsuda, Hugh Morrice, Robert Brown Palmer, Kenneth Lavery Rider, Alexander Ross, John Russell, Alexander Scobbie, James Wilson.
At about the same time as this accident, the attack on Pearl Harbor took place on the other side of the globe . The fate of the "Christmas ship" has always moved the Faroese and from 2000 the wreck was visited in several dives, with many objects being recovered. It was the largest diving company in the history of the Faroe Islands to date.
literature
- Grækaris Djurhuus Magnussen : Jólaskipið. S / S Sauternes í Fugloyarfirði . Forlagið Steyri, Korsør 2002, ISBN 87-89501-80-2 , (In Faroese, website ( Memento of October 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive )).
Web links
- Diving expedition 2000 ( Memento from December 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) (English, Danish, Faroese - extensive picture gallery)
- SS Sauternes - ship story. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 10, 2012 ; Retrieved October 19, 2013 . (English)