Julie Brominicks scours the coast in search of the UK’s most iconic wrecks
01 BLOCKSHIPS, SCAPA FLOW, ORKNEY
Sometimes, as in the case of the Scapa Flow blockships, vessels were deliberately wrecked. While battleships lie further out on the seabed, the ‘blockships’ visible from the Skerry and East Weddell Sound were scuttled to form part of a defence against German U-boats. By the Second World War the defences had fallen into disrepair, admitting a German submarine which torpedoed the HMS Royal Oak, after which concrete blocks were added to the barricade.
02 PASSAGES, JURBY, ISLE OF MAN
Built in 1917 in Toronto as a minesweeper for the Royal Canadian Navy, Passages was brought to the UK in the 1920s, converted into a fishing trawler and put to work. In 1931, returning to Fleetwood after fishing for herring in Northern Irish waters, she ran aground in a storm. The Ramsey Rocket Corps descended the nearby headland and managed to save the crew of 13.
03 SALLY, WESTWARD HO!, DEVON
Mighty seas and shifting sands regularly expose the 1769 wreck of an oak-timbered ship whose ‘trunnels’ – wooden nails that swell on contact with water – are preserved. A mid-19th century sighting of what is believed to be the Salvation, or Sally, described the wreck as being already “very old”. The Sally was caught in a powerful wind from an unusual direction, and her cargo of barrels of Portuguese wine were quickly spirited away.
04 SHERATON, HUNSTANTON, NORFOLK
The Sheraton began life in 1907 as a North Sea fishing boat, but she has a complex history. In the First World War she was requisitioned as a minesweeper. In the Second World War, she was armed with a six-pounder gun. Finally, post-war, she was painted yellow and used for target practice in Brest Sand, until high winds in 1947 tore her anchorage, whereupon she drifted to her present position.
05 SV PAUL, CEFN SIDAN, CARMARTHENSHIRE
More than 300 wrecks lie beneath the sands of Cefn Sidan beach. Many we
