#shipwreck — Public Fediverse posts

Earliest shipwreck in Singapore reveals 14th century trading port and massive ceramic cargo

A four-year maritime excavation off the coast of Singapore has produced the earliest known shipwreck in the country’s waters and strong evidence of a busy trading port in the 14th century. The vessel, known as the Temasek Wreck, sank sometime between 1340 and 1352...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/earliest-shipwreck-in-singapore-trading-port/

Follow us @archaeology.news

#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #shipwreck

Earliest shipwreck in Singapore reveals 14th century trading port and massive ceramic cargo

A four-year maritime excavation off the coast of Singapore has produced the earliest known shipwreck in the country’s waters and strong evidence of a busy trading port in the 14th century. The vessel, known as the Temasek Wreck, sank sometime between 1340 and 1352...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/earliest-shipwreck-in-singapore-trading-port/

Follow us @archaeology.news

#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #shipwreck

Earliest shipwreck in Singapore reveals 14th century trading port and massive ceramic cargo

A four-year maritime excavation off the coast of Singapore has produced the earliest known shipwreck in the country’s waters and strong evidence of a busy trading port in the 14th century. The vessel, known as the Temasek Wreck, sank sometime between 1340 and 1352...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/earliest-shipwreck-in-singapore-trading-port/

Follow us @archaeology.news

#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #shipwreck

Earliest shipwreck in Singapore reveals 14th century trading port and massive ceramic cargo

A four-year maritime excavation off the coast of Singapore has produced the earliest known shipwreck in the country’s waters and strong evidence of a busy trading port in the 14th century. The vessel, known as the Temasek Wreck, sank sometime between 1340 and 1352...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/earliest-shipwreck-in-singapore-trading-port/

Follow us @archaeology.news

#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #shipwreck

Earliest shipwreck in Singapore reveals 14th century trading port and massive ceramic cargo

A four-year maritime excavation off the coast of Singapore has produced the earliest known shipwreck in the country’s waters and strong evidence of a busy trading port in the 14th century. The vessel, known as the Temasek Wreck, sank sometime between 1340 and 1352...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/02/earliest-shipwreck-in-singapore-trading-port/

Follow us @archaeology.news

#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #shipwreck

Ancient Roman shipwreck reveals hidden secrets of waterproofing and Mediterranean repairs

A Roman ship that sank about 2,200 years ago off the coast of present-day Croatia has offered new evidence about how ancient crews protected their vessels at sea...

More information: https://archaeologymag.com/2026/04/roman-shipwreck-secrets-of-waterproofing/

Follow us @archaeology

#archaeology #archeology #archaeologynews #romanempire #shipwreck #underwaterarchaeology

Random Old Comic: G. I. Joe https://www.toyboxcomix.com/2018/09/07/g-i-joe/ G. I. Joe #Bazooka #Doc #GIJoe #Hawk #LadyJaye #RipCord #Shipwreck

Random Old Comic: G. I. Joe https://www.toyboxcomix.com/2018/09/07/g-i-joe/ G. I. Joe #Bazooka #Doc #GIJoe #Hawk #LadyJaye #RipCord #Shipwreck

Random Old Comic: G. I. Joe https://www.toyboxcomix.com/2018/09/07/g-i-joe/ G. I. Joe #Bazooka #Doc #GIJoe #Hawk #LadyJaye #RipCord #Shipwreck

Random Old Comic: G. I. Joe https://www.toyboxcomix.com/2018/09/07/g-i-joe/ G. I. Joe #Bazooka #Doc #GIJoe #Hawk #LadyJaye #RipCord #Shipwreck

Random Old Comic: G. I. Joe https://www.toyboxcomix.com/2018/09/07/g-i-joe/ G. I. Joe #Bazooka #Doc #GIJoe #Hawk #LadyJaye #RipCord #Shipwreck

The Pt. Reyes Muted

I love playing with this particular subject. The boat has been slowing deteriorating for as long as I can remember. I first shot this boat a few years ago and tend to stop every time I go out to Point Reyes.
I removed the color from the boat so that I could isolate it against the green rolling hills and the blue sky of the Marin County countryside.
https://pixels.com/featured/the-pt-reyes-muted-bill-gallagher.html

#ThePtReyesMuted #BillGallagherPhotography #ThePtReyes #Shipwreck #BuyIntoArt #AYearForArt #Inverness

Visited Kastellholmen and Kastellholmsvraket (the Kastellholmen wreck) today. Weather was fantastic! And I'm so happy I went to see it; it's mostly not possible to see this wreck since it's mostly below surface, but unusually low water levels right now. (Some would say I only need to take a selfie to photograph a wreck.)
@feodora I did it; I went there! 😀
#StreetPhotography #Wreck #ShipWreck #WreckPhotography #Kastellholmen #Stockholm #Kastellholmsvraket #Vrak

'ST CYRUS WRECK'
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An abandoned fishing boat rests in the grass at St Cyrus, its weathered hull standing as a quiet reminder of Scotland’s working coastline 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿
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https://davebowmanphotography.com/featured/st-cyrus-wreck-dave-bowman.html
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#photography #photographersofmastodon #shipwreck #wallart #BuyIntoArt #GiftThemArt #ArtMatters #AYearofArt #artistonmastodon
#AYearForArt
#fedigiftshop #MastoArt #interiordecor #homedecor #homedecoration #creativetoots #artbooster #davebowmanphotography

Ámbar del naufragio de Belitung, un dhow árabe que se hundió en el 830 d.C. en el viaje de vuelta de China, cuando se desvió de la ruta habitual en el sudeste asiático. Probablemente se hubiera quemado con la resina de benjuí (Styrax benzoin) como ritual para asegurar, irónicamente, un buen viaje. 🏛️Museo de las Civilizaciones Asiáticas de Singapur #naufragio #shipwreck

Ámbar del naufragio de Belitung, un dhow árabe que se hundió en el 830 d.C. en el viaje de vuelta de China, cuando se desvió de la ruta habitual en el sudeste asiático. Probablemente se hubiera quemado con la resina de benjuí (Styrax benzoin) como ritual para asegurar, irónicamente, un buen viaje. 🏛️Museo de las Civilizaciones Asiáticas de Singapur #naufragio #shipwreck

Ámbar del naufragio de Belitung, un dhow árabe que se hundió en el 830 d.C. en el viaje de vuelta de China, cuando se desvió de la ruta habitual en el sudeste asiático. Probablemente se hubiera quemado con la resina de benjuí (Styrax benzoin) como ritual para asegurar, irónicamente, un buen viaje. 🏛️Museo de las Civilizaciones Asiáticas de Singapur #naufragio #shipwreck

Ámbar del naufragio de Belitung, un dhow árabe que se hundió en el 830 d.C. en el viaje de vuelta de China, cuando se desvió de la ruta habitual en el sudeste asiático. Probablemente se hubiera quemado con la resina de benjuí (Styrax benzoin) como ritual para asegurar, irónicamente, un buen viaje. 🏛️Museo de las Civilizaciones Asiáticas de Singapur #naufragio #shipwreck

Ámbar del naufragio de Belitung, un dhow árabe que se hundió en el 830 d.C. en el viaje de vuelta de China, cuando se desvió de la ruta habitual en el sudeste asiático. Probablemente se hubiera quemado con la resina de benjuí (Styrax benzoin) como ritual para asegurar, irónicamente, un buen viaje. 🏛️Museo de las Civilizaciones Asiáticas de Singapur #naufragio #shipwreck

Greenpoint Ship Graveyard is the southernmost point on our planet I have ever been to. It’s near Bluff in South Island in New Zealand. The site has been used as a dumping ground for decommissioned and derelict ships since the late 19th century.
#oceania #newzealand #southland #bluff #greenpoint #shipgraveyard #shipwreck #maritime #history #rust #coastline #seabirds #landscape #travel #photography #fotografia
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Greenpoint Ship Graveyard is the southernmost point on our planet I have ever been to. It’s near Bluff in South Island in New Zealand. The site has been used as a dumping ground for decommissioned and derelict ships since the late 19th century.
#oceania #newzealand #southland #bluff #greenpoint #shipgraveyard #shipwreck #maritime #history #rust #coastline #seabirds #landscape #travel #photography #fotografia
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Greenpoint Ship Graveyard is the southernmost point on our planet I have ever been to. It’s near Bluff in South Island in New Zealand. The site has been used as a dumping ground for decommissioned and derelict ships since the late 19th century.
#oceania #newzealand #southland #bluff #greenpoint #shipgraveyard #shipwreck #maritime #history #rust #coastline #seabirds #landscape #travel #photography #fotografia
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Greenpoint Ship Graveyard is the southernmost point on our planet I have ever been to. It’s near Bluff in South Island in New Zealand. The site has been used as a dumping ground for decommissioned and derelict ships since the late 19th century.
#oceania #newzealand #southland #bluff #greenpoint #shipgraveyard #shipwreck #maritime #history #rust #coastline #seabirds #landscape #travel #photography #fotografia
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North Carolina Wreck Diving: The Bruse Reeb

North Carolina is often called the Graveyard of the Atlantic, home to hundreds of shipwrecks scattered along its coast. While the famous wrecks like the U-352 and the Spar get most of the attention, some of the most memorable dives come from the lesser-known sites hidden offshore.

https://youtu.be/wu43_h92tZA?si=uVu-PeLl8Nb3fNWb&t=581

On a recent trip with Gotham Divers, aboard Atlantis Charters out of Beaufort, NC, we headed out to a site nicknamed the Wreck of the Bruse Reeb – Bow Section. It’s not one of the marquee wrecks you’ll see in guidebooks, but that’s exactly what made the dive so interesting—quiet, atmospheric, and full of life.

Exploring the Wreckage

The bow section of the Bruse Reeb lies scattered across the seafloor, its remnants slowly being reclaimed by the ocean. Rusting beams and plates provide structure for schools of fish that weave through the wreckage. Though modest in scale compared to other North Carolina wrecks, it offered plenty of details to notice and film, making the dive feel like a mix of history and marine life.

Crossing Paths with Another Diver

Also on board that day was Squalus Marine Divers, who was filming the dive for his own channel. Around the 10-minute mark of his video, he was capturing footage of a perfectly camouflaged summer flounder when I drifted into the frame. Flounders are masters of disguise. You usually won’t notice them until they shift or flick their fins. It was a fun, unscripted moment to have both of us filming the same fish from different angles.

Why North Carolina Diving Stands Out

This dive was a reminder of what makes North Carolina wreck diving so special. Beyond the well-known sites, there are countless smaller wrecks scattered offshore, each with its own atmosphere and ecosystem. From Beaufort to Morehead City, operators like Atlantis Charters make these sites accessible, giving divers the chance to experience both the legends and the hidden gems of the Graveyard of the Atlantic.

To get a closer look at the wreck and the marine life around it, check out the full dive video from Squalus Marine Divers above. About ten minutes in, you’ll spot the moment when we both film the same summer flounder. This is one of those small, unscripted underwater encounters. Such experiences make dives like this so memorable.

https://youtu.be/xo1DoNMFjQw

Underwater Camera Captures First-Ever Images of Japanese WWII Warship https://petapixel.com/2025/07/15/underwater-camera-captures-first-ever-images-of-japanese-wwii-warship/ #underwatercamera #worldwarii #shipwreck #japan #News #rov

A visual prompt for the weekend writers... What worlds can you conjure from this image?

If your imagination is already whirring with possibilities, join us for Writing the Occult: Relics on 10 May where we consider the case of Relics: writingtheoccult.carrd.co 🧵⬇️

#writersofmastodon #writingprompt #visualprompt #horror #fantasy #occult #writingtheoccult #shipwreck

Underwater Autonomous Drones Discover ‘Ghost Ship of the Pacific’ https://petapixel.com/2024/10/03/underwater-autonomous-drones-discover-ghost-ship-of-the-pacific/ #underwaterdrones #hmsendurance #ghostship #shipwreck #News

Gibsons of Leith: the thread about the enterprising fish smokers who became pioneers of Scottish aviation

This thread was originally written and published in February 2023.

In a previous thread, we looked at the Edinburgh Aviation Craze of 1910, when a few local citizens dared to dream that they might fly in machines they had crafted from their own hands. One of those men was John Gibson, and this is his story. John was born in September 1856, the first child of Margaret Forrest and John Gibson of New Street, Fisherrow, the small harbour village just to the west of Musselburgh. John (senior) was a fish curer and town councillor, like his father before him, and the family lived in a house by the name of Gibson’s Land. The family moved to Liverpool in the 1860s, business at Fisherrow having been disrupted by the coming of the railways. John Junior went to sea as an apprentice aged 14, learning that trade across the globe on oceanic sailing ships.

In August 1875, when aged just 18, he found himself wrecked off Cape Horn after the on which he was serving had to be abandoned. The Albert Gallatin of Liverpool became uncontrollable after losing her rudder and was in danger of being wrecked on the rocky shore of the Ildefenso Islands to the south of Chile. The ship’s complement of 30 took to the boats; the first mate and 20 seamen in the larger and Captain Groves, his wife and two children, and five seamen including John in the smaller. The latter boat made it safely to Islas Hermite, where they spent 9 days, before setting off again in search of something from which to construct a sail. After 2 days fruitless rowing they landed on another island, where they were reduced to a diet of half a cracker and 3½ ounces of salt beef each per day and suffered badly from exposure. They were fortuitously rescued by the ship Syren of Boston after 18 days. The other 21 men were never seen again.

John Senior moved the family back to Scotland around this time, re-establishing his fish curing business in Leith, but his son fancied his chances and headed to Australia to prospect for Gold. Not striking it rich, he soon returned home and joined the family trade, dealing in smoked fish in Newhaven. In 1897 he set himself up as a dealer of machinery and soon took to repair work and it was not long before this extended to bicycles. He entered the cycle trade at 109 Leith Walk around 1905, this business soon took the name of the Caledonian Cycle Works. These premises had substantial workshops to the rear, under the Manderston Street railway arches, perfect space for Gibson to indulge in tinkering with bikes, cars and engines.

It’s not exactly clear why, but in early 1909 John Gibson decided to get himself into the aircraft industry by building his own machines. Perhaps he was inspired by those two other bicycle repair shop proprietors; Orville and Wilbur Wright. Or perhaps it was the contemporary adventures of Scotland’s other aviation pioneers, which had been plastered all over the newspapers. The Barnwell brothers of Stirling – Frank and Harold – had been experimenting with gliders and had even tried to fit an internal combustion engine to one in 1905. In 1908, Lt. Laurence D. L. Gibbs made short, powered hops in a curious, swept-wing, “automatic stability” biplane called the Dunne D.4 in much secrecy in Glen Tilt near Blair Atholl. In July 1909, the Barnwells made the first powered flight in Scotland. Closer to home for Gibson there was a financial incentive to budding aviators too; in September 1909, the directors of the Marine Gardens amusement park in Portobello had offered a £500 prize, good for 1 year, for the first flight across the Firth of Forth by a Briton in a British-built plane, so long as it started from Marine Gardens. It was noted in April 1910 that Mr Charles Hubbard, an engineer living at Viewforth, was experimenting with a Bleriot-type monoplane of his own construction on Portobello Golf Course and had made a number of powered hops before it crashed.

Suitably inspired, Gibson’s first forays into aeroplanes were quarter-scale models, c. 10 feet long and certainly showing the influence of the Wright Brothers: being biplanes controlled by warping the wings and by a canard (a leading control surface rather than a tail), being powered by two propellers driven by chains from a single engine and by landing on skis. They were built both to hone and refine Gibson’s techniques and design, but also as demonstration pieces to be put on public show. In total he built nineteen different models, and the design of his craft evolved over this time.

The definitive model moved up to half-scale, 15½ feet long and 12 feet in span, and adopted the layout of Henry Farman, a French aviation pioneer and a type which was very popular in the UK at that time. Again a canard biplane, it had movable ailerons on the wing-tips for control, a single, 7-cylinder rotary engine and the refinement of wheels with rubber suspension added to the landing skis. This was built specifically to exhibit in London and Berlin in March and April of 1910 respectively and was sponsored by the North British Rubber Company to exhibit their rubberised aircraft fabric. The structure was of ash wood, braced by piano wires.

Even before half-sized Farman model was completed, Gibson had already moved on to the construction of a full-sized version of it – Caledonia No. 1. In July 1910 it was ready and The Scotsman reported it to be 30 feet long and 28 feet in span, with a loaded weight of 700 lbs. It was powered by a 3-cylinder, water-cooled engine of 30 hp, driving a 2-bladed propeller of 6 feet 8 inches at 1,100 rpm. The pilot sat on the lower wing, with the engine to his back and the radiators on either side. In contrast to the model, the vertical tails were mounted one above the other, rather than side-by-side. Construction was of silver spruce, with elm skids, and again it was covered in North British rubberised fabric. The aircraft could be disassembled for transport, and a photo of it exists in a field outside Edinburgh being put back together again. Gibson told the press that the only part of his machine that was not built in Scotland was its engine. He had intended to enter the machine into the Royal Aero Club’s inaugural Scottish flying meeting at Lanark Racecourse in August of that year, but the proprietors were wary of the public relations disasters experienced by other events as a result of amateur flyers who could not convince their homespun machines to take off and barred all but experienced pilots in proven aircraft. Gibson was disappointed to be excluded from the Lanark meet, but this was probably for the best as No. 1 refused to take off.

Undeterred, the machine was rebuilt as Caledonia No. 2, and in August it is reputed to have managed to make some short, controlled hops at Buteland Farm, outside Balerno, with Gibson’s 30 year old son – John G. Gibson (the G was for Gibson!) – at the controls. The main visual changes to No. 2 were the twin canards at the front and the curved supporting skids between them and the wheels (which protected the plane in the event of it nosing-over on take off and landing).

Gibson undertook some of the flying himself, but as injured in a crash and broke his leg. Thereafter he deferred most of the flight testing to his son – John G. There are mentions online of testing being undertaken on Leith Links, but I can find no references to substantiate this, and as far as I’m aware Buteland Farm was used as their test ground. The Gibsons now had a working aircraft and began soliciting for orders, charging £450 for a complete machine. Full-page spread adverts were placed in the Edinburgh and Leith post office directories:

Planes, Tails, Ailerons, supplied on receipt of measurements and other details on very short notice.
Best materials only used. Your orders solicited for Scottish-built Planes.
Spare parts or complete machines.
Wood Spars cut any length, straight-grained and free from knots.
Aeroplane Fabric, all grades, at factory prices.
We make Aluminium castings from customer’s patterns or drawings. Wood patterns made to order.
We undertake Aeroplane repairs.

Advert for Gibson’s Aeroplanes, 1910-11

Nine more machines were built by the company in the next few years, most for sale to private customers. In September 1911, Gibson reported to the press that one of his machines – Caledonia No. 11 – had accidentally but successfully performed a “somersault” in the air when being flown at Cramond by Gordon T. Cooper, the son of the secretary of the Edinburgh Aeronautical Association. In November of that year, one of the Gibson machines was included in the display of the Scottish Aeronautical Society at the National Exhibition, at Kelvingrove in Glasgow.

Of the 11 full-size machines built by the Gibsons, four were written off in crashes, one was destroyed in a fire when on display at an exhibition in Brussels and another met the same fate in the Manderston Street workshop. Progress seems then to have stalled, this is perhaps because John G. had graduated from Edinburgh University as a prize-winner and passed an entry exam to the Indian Civil Service, which gained him a prestigious appointment in London with the HM Office of Works. A larger machine was designed in 1913 and was said to be under construction the following year when the outbreak of war saw it being cancelled. This event saw John G. join the Royal Engineers, and he was twice wounded during the conflict. Post-war he took a civil service job attached to the Air Ministry.

During the war, the Caledonian Cycles business was relocated to Dalry Road and the Leith Walk premises and its workshops became the Caledonian Motor Works, with additional workshop premises being taken on Sloan Street and Jameson Place nearby. Business became focussed on providing bodies for lorries and post-war the company would become a principal agent in Scotland for Leyland lorries and buses, with premises taken in King Street, Aberdeen to serve the north-east of Scotland. Later they would become an agent for Morris Commercial Vehicles.

John Gibson (senior) died aged 79, at his home at 19 Pilrig Street in Leith on August 7th 1935. The Scottish newspapers mourned his passing and noted a surprising further string to his bow; he was an acknowledged authority on Egyptology and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquities. John G.’s younger brother – George Thomson Gibson – seems to have largely taken over the running of the company. George was a capable engineer – taking out his first patent for improvements to motorcycle frame joints in 1918. In the 1950s he took out a series of patents for improvements to refuse vehicles and these would become something of a company speciality.

Another line of business was “Gibson Towers”, which they designed and built for themselves; mobile platforms for working at height. Still based in Leith, a pleasing throwback to their aviation heritage was the continued use of “Aero, Edinburgh” as the telegram address.

George T. died in Edinburgh in 1960 aged 69. John G. died in 1970, aged 80. The company continued for a while after the death of the Gibson brothers, being closed and wound-up in 1975.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

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These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

RMS Forth: the thread about the unusual end of a Leith-built ship on a Mexican reef

Today’s auction house artefact is this print of the launch of the Royal Mail Steamship (RMS) Forth in Leith in 1841, by the shipbuilders Robert Menzies & Sons.

Forth was launched on May 22nd “in the presence of 60,000 Spectators”. The Scotsman newspaper reported it was “a glorious thing to see… streams of people gaily attired, moving towards one point, and animated by one feeling of joyous anticipation” and The Sun of London declared it to be the largest crowd assembled in the city since the visit of King George IV in 1822. At 1,940 tons burthen (that’s an estimate of her carrying capacity or “tonnage”), she was “without a doubt” and “incomparably” the largest ship ever built at Leith up to that time. Her overall length was 245 feet, her breadth was 60 feet across the paddle boxes and her draught was 30 feet. The engines, to be fitted by Mr Barry in Liverpool, would produce 225 horsepower each and she had cabins for 100 passengers.

The ceremony was officiated by Mr Menzies, the builder, and Miss Colville – daughter of the deputy chairman of the owners – performed the honours at 2PM by smashing a bottle of wine against the hull to bless and commence the launch. The builders had built a special gallery for which admission was charged to view the launch up close, the surplus from this being donated to the Leith Dispensary and the local Humane Society. Fourteen years earlier, Menzies had launched the little Sirius, of just 412 tons burthen, which in 1838 became the first steam ship to complete an east-to-west Transatlantic passage.

The newly established West India Royal Mail Steam Packet Co. was funded by a government subsidy and had a contract to provide a fleet of not fewer than 14 ships for carrying all Her Majesty’s mails to the West Indies; “to sail twice every month to Barbados in the West Indies from Southampton or Falmouth” . These new steamers were all named after British rivers, with Thames, Medway, Trent, and Isis (built at Northfleet); Severn and Avon (Bristol); Tweed, Clyde, Teviot, Dee, and Solway (Greenock); Tay (Dumbarton); Medina (Cowes) and finally Forth at Leith.

The Forth did not have a long life however and was wrecked in January 1849 on only her seventeenth mail run from Southampton to the West Indies. She departed the former port on September 2nd 1848 under the command of Captain Sturdee. In January she ran aground on Scorpion Reef off the north coast of Yucatán, Mexico. All her passengers and crew, 126 souls in total, were fortuitously landed on the reef and were saved. It took many months for news of her loss to be confirmed back in the UK, in early March the papers were still speculating on her fate.

When the account of her loss finally made it across the Atlantic, it was found that Forth had arrived in Havana from Jamaica on January 11th, from where she was to go to the following day to New Orleans and thence onwards to Vera Cruz. She left Havana on the Friday 12th as expected, and at daybreak on Sunday 14th she hit the Scorpion Reef. It was stressed at this point that:

“Captain Sturdee, the commander, was wholly free from blame, one of those inexplicable currents peculiar to the Gulf of Mexico, having negatived all his calculations, and that his subsequent conduct was in every way remarkable for firmness and self-devotion“.

Sturdee and his crew calmly embarked the passengers onto the lifeboats. While the best course of subsequent action was being decided, a sailing ship was spotted and some of the crew under the command of a Royal Navy officer who was on board as a passenger volunteered to row out of the reef and sail to their potential saviour. With the assistance of this ship, the passengers and crew were landed on the island of Perez. Captain Sturdee lead a salvage party back to the wreck to recover supplies and the passengers’ personal effects, and they were rescued from Perez by a passing Yucatan brigantine on Wednesday 17th January.

It was noted at the time that the Forth was the fifth large Royal Mail Steam Packet steamer lost since commencement of the steam mail ship service to the West Indies in 1841, the others being Medina, Isis and her sister ships Solway and Tweed. Tweed was lost on the Alacranes Rocks in the gulf of Mexico; which if you know your Spanish translates into English as the Scorpion Rocks; exactly the same that claimed the Forth two years later. Indeed one of Forth‘s passengers related to the newspaper men that he had read the account of the loss of the Tweed the night before the Forth was lost and on relaying his concerns to Captain Sturdee, was given an audience in the latter’s cabin to go over the charts and reassure him that they should not be within 18 miles of those rocks.

Captain Edwin Sturdee lived a long life, dying in 1897 at the age of 81. He was the uncle of Sir Frederick Charles Doveton Sturdee, the Admiral who avenged the Royal Navy’s loss at the Battle of Coronel in 1914 by winning the follow-up Battle of the Falkland Islands and sinking the German ships that had been victors of the former action.

Note to readers: unfortunately in April 2026, a third-party plug-in more than exceeded its authority and broke many of the image links on this site. No images were lost but I will have to restore them page-by-page, which may take some time. In the meantime please bear with me while I go about rectifying this issue.

If you have found this site useful, informative or amusing then you can help contribute towards its running costs by supporting me on ko-fi. This includes my commitment to keeping it 100% advert and AI free for all time coming, and in helping to find further unusual stories to bring you by acquiring books and paying for research.
Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends and like-minded people, sites like this thrive on being shared.

Explore Threadinburgh by map:

These threads © 2017-2026, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

The Burning of the “Brilliant”: the thread about the loss of a Leith steam packet and the death of Captain Wade

The PS Brilliant was one of the earliest steamships in Scotland, built by James Lang in Dumbarton for the Leith & Aberdeen Steam Yacht Company (of Leith) way back in 1821 – just nine years after the pioneering Comet introduced this type of vessel to the world. Her owners were based at 22 Bernard Street in Leith, the commercial quarter of that town and where many a shipping and merchant company based itself.

Apart from the addition of the steam plant and paddle wheels, the Brilliant wasn’t really that different in form or construction from a sailing coaster and in common with early steamers was also rigged as a sailing vessel, for times when either there were favourable winds (to increase the speed or make her more economical) or when the mechanical propulsion broke down. She was fairly small; displacing 159 tons, being 120 feet (36.6m) long, 20.5 feet (6.2m) wide 8in the beam, with an 8 foot (2.4m) draught below the waterline and had a crew of 10

The little ship proved successful and reliable vessel in service and plied the east and north coast of Scotland over the years following her launch, originally between Leith and Aberdeen and soon adding intermediate stops in Fife or Dundee along the way. Summer saw her sailings extended to Inverness and even Wick. She was joined in service by sister ships the Sovereign and Velocity. An advert in the 1839-40 Edinburgh and Leith Post Office directory shows that the company’s ships sailed from Leith to Aberdeen every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with reverse journeys departing on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday, with a 14s fare for cabin passage or 7s for steerage. Her master was Cawfield Wade.

Coastal steam packets proved themselves in service – they could move against the wind as well as with it – and could therefore keep a faster, more reliable timetable. Before there were long distance railways in the country, they were the fastest way for people and trade to move (so long as you wanted to keep to the coasts). The industry saw a flurry of speculative investment followed by the realities of business, which resulted in a consolidation of the various companies. In 1826 Brilliant‘s owners merged the rival Aberdeen & Leith Shipping Company to form the Aberdeen & Leith Steam Packet Company and a little over ten years later in 1837 it merged with others to become the Aberdeen, Leith, Clyde & Tay Shipping Company, usually shortened to just the Leith & Clyde Co. Under this ownership we can find Brilliant in the fateful year 1839 in Lloyd’s Register.

Brilliant’s usual southern terminus was of course the Port of Leith. In the engraving below after a painting by W. H. Bartlett we see a paddle steamships arriving at the quayside – note the boarding gangway hung off the back of the paddle box – and we can allow ourselves to imagine that this might be the Brilliant (although the position of the funnel and single mast says otherwise…)

Because of the poor state of the Port of Leith in the 1820s and 30s the ship often sailed instead from the Trinity Chain Pier, which had been built as a speculative scheme to provide a steamship pier less affected by the tides of the Forth. She could quite possibly be one of the small steam ships seen in the picture below.

By 1839 Brilliant was sailing thrice a week from her home port of Aberdeen, to Leith, under Captain Cawfield Wade. The journey took about twelve hours, although she had managed it with the wind at her back in only ten and three quarters, and called at intermediate piers along the Fife and Angus coast. The schedule was well maintained, intermediate stops took only 5-10 minutes and were conducted offshore: passengers who wished to join or leave the steamer were rowed out to meet her from those ports. Once a week in the summer she would make a run from Aberdeen to Inverness and back again.

Of Captain Wade we know relatively little as his death predates statutory registers and surviving census records. In 1835 he was the master of the Aberdeen & London Shipping Co.’s smack Aberdeen Packet, sailing between those ports. He had then been a mate (officer) in steamships on the Aberdeen and Leith route before being promoted to master of the Brilliant, which seems to have been his first command in that company. He married Lilias Reid in Aberdeen in 1837, a farmer’s daughter from Alford, and we know he had a brother William, also “a mariner in Aberdeen“. I can find neither of these men in Scottish parish birth registers however Wade is an uncommon name in these parts at the time. The Caledonian Mercury would however later describe him as a son of Stonehaven.

On the afternoon of 11th December 1839, Captain Wade took the Brilliant out of Leith and headed north on what should have been just another one of her thrice-weekly scheduled runs. In the picture below we can see a steam packet departing Leith in choppy seas.

The little ship headed into a choppy Firth of Forth and began her scheduled calls along the Fife coast, but weather conditions were worsening.

Up in Aberdeen Captain Morrison, the Aberdeen harbour master and pilot, was awoken from his bed by a terrible storm. It was this maelstrom into which the Brilliant would sail early that morning.

Struggling through heavy weather and violent seas and almost within sight of Aberdeen, disaster struck. At around six O’ clock in the morning when she was off the welcome site of Girdle Ness Lighthouse the deck was suddenly swamped by an unexpected wave. Cawfield Wade, at his station on the quarterdeck, could do nothing to stop himself being swept overboard and disappeared into the sea, never to be seen again. But the troubles were not over yet – the approaches to Aberdeen harbour had a fearsome reputation in Victorian times, one which was well earned. Brilliant was now wallowing through the storm towards it without her master and was about to become the first steam-powered victim of this entrance.

The sea was rushing on from the beam (her sides) as the little steamer approached the harbour entrance. Passing through a feature known as The Bar her helmsman was not able to keep her clear of the churning water around the head of the pier and she was driven side-on into the harbour wall, just below the Fittie (Footdee) lighthouse.

The Brilliant was mortally wounded and this was quickly apparent to all onboard. The call to abandon ship was given but in his haste to get to safety the ship’s engineer failed to draw the fires from her boilers, which quickly began to run dry. Overheating due to a lack of water they soon set the wooden vessel ablaze. The artist J. Faddie captured the remarkable scene that night for us.

Miraculously, all on board – except the tragic Captain Wade – were saved. Salvage parties were even organised to return to the burning ship and recover most of her cargo: the bow of the ship was stuck fast on pier allowing them to work in (relative) safety while the stern burnt out. We can see them on deck in the painting above. The mainmast was deliberately cut down about ten O’ clock in the morning, to stop it collapising on the workers, and an hour later the funnel and mizzen (after) mast did collapse.By sunset on the twelfth of December the ship had burned down to her waterline and the pounding of the seas was beginning to make short work of scattering her remains across the seabed and shoreline.

The body of Cawfield Wade would never be found. His will shows he left an estate of £50 (about £5,000 today), about a year’s pay for someone in his position and to his wife Lilias he left their household goods worth around £40. To his brother William he left his “suit of coloured clothes“, his best jacket and his watch (although it’s likely he may have taken these with him to his watery grave). To a man described as brother-in-law he left his “suit of black clothes“: his Sunday and mourning attire. These bequests were made with the unusual condition forbidding his “nearest in kin from troubling or molesting” his widow. Lilias lived out a long life as the “Widow of the Late Captain Wade“, running various lodging houses in Aberdeen. She died at the age of 87 in Old Machar parish in Aberdeen, her last address a respectable granite house in Margaret Street. This way of supporting herself would have been one of the few options open to her beyond remarrying.

William Wade is never heard of again, although a woman Martha Wade and a child, William Wade, are in the 1841 Aberdeen census; they may have been a wife and child or sister and nephew. That William Wade junior would become a seaman and get a master’s ticket in later life.

The entry to the harbour would prove to be treacherous for the Aberdeen steamers. Nine years later in 1848, Brilliant‘s sister – the Velocity – would be wrecked in almost exactly the same spot and circumstances, driven onto the Fittie wall by heavy seas. Again all aboard were saved but the ship and all cargo were demolished within an hour and scattered along the Torryside. In 1853, the Duke of Sutherland – at the end of a long journey from London – was wrecked in the harbour entrance with sixteen lives lost.

In 1863 the Prince Consort would also come a cropper. She broke her back but miraculously was salvaged, repaired and returned to service only to be finally wrecked nearby on the Hasman Rocks, a few miles south of Girdle Ness, four years later. Fortuitously there was no loss of life in either accident.

The Aberdeen, Leith, Clyde & Tay Shipping Co. would go on to prosper, becoming the North of Scotland, Orkney & Shetland Steam Navigation Company, more commonly known as just the North Company, which connected the ports of Orkney, Shetland and the north of Scotland with Leith.

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