On the afternoon of Nov 10 last year, a special ceremony took place off Sunderland to mark the sinking of the Royal Navy Racecourse class paddle minesweeper Ascot by a German submarine during the First World War.
The name ship of her 32-strong class, the Ascot had been about seven miles from Seahouses when she was spotted by the UB-67 and she was hit with what was thought to be the U-boat’s last torpedo and sank with the loss of all 53 crew.
The attack took place just a day before Nov 11, Armistice Day, and the Ascot was the last Royal Navy ship to be sunk by a submarine in the war. The RNLI said: “The torpedo explosion was so loud that it was heard by one of the keepers on the Longstone Lighthouse and he reported that a ship had hit a mine. He requested that lifeboats should be launched.
“The explosion was also heard on the shore and the Seahouses and Holy Island lifeboats were launched. The Seahouses Lifeboat Station was known as the North Sunderland station and its lifeboat was the Forster Fawcett and the Holy Island lifeboat was the Lizzie Porter (and was later stationed at Seahouses). Both were 35ft lifeboats powered by oars and sails. A steam tug also responded.
“The weather conditions were bad with gale force winds and poor visibility. The two lifeboats had difficult passages to reach the scene and searched the area, but no survivors were found.”
Both lifeboats returned to their stations but the steam tug had to assist the North Sunderland lifeboat back to shore. The U-boat surrendered on Nov 24 and was broken up at Swansea in 1922.
Among the Ascot’s crew who died was Able Seaman John Matthew Postlethwaite, of Liverpool, and his memorial can be found at Plymouth Naval Memorial. His descendents, Mr Paul King and his family, visited Seahouses in late May, 2016, to make a donation in memory of Mr King’s late wife Dorothy, and mentioned the Ascot story, although their information was incomplete.
The contract for the design and build of the port handling facilities on Teesside for Sirius Minerals Plc, owners of
The Appledore shipyard in Devon is to be closed in March by its owners, the UK-based engineering company Babcock International.
The latest vessel to join the fleet of model ships used for training at Southampton University’s Warsash School of Maritime,
All fifteen people were rescued from a listing self-propelled self-elevating jackup platform, known in the US offshore industry as a
For the second year running, the Port of Long Beach, California, has broken its record for the volume of cargo
Drugs with a street value of $500mn were unloaded at Port Everglades, Florida, on Nov 15 by the US Coast
The major US oil exporting port of Corpus Christi, in Texas, set a new tonnage record during the first nine
In a major first on Oct 1, four liquefied gas carriers transited the Panama Canal in one day through the
A simulated collision - known as a tabletop drill - involving a LNG carrier and a fishing boat in Japanese waters has
The major Japanese shipping group Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) has come up with a new concept of how a ship
The UK registered container ship CMA CGM Centaurus, 131,322gt, crashed into the quay at the United Arab port of Jebel
The P&O Cruises Australia cruise ship Pacific Explorer, 77,499gt, was detailed by the Australian authorities after spilling waste water in
American News In what might be seen as a return to the heady days of NASA’s Apollo moon program, the
British News Many people never thought they’d see it happen, but F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters have finally flown
American News The Zumult class destroyer USS Michael Monsoor was in dockyard hands at Bath in Maine for the removal
British News The assault ship HMS Albion, at time of writing, had just completed a five day visit to Tokyo
British News The latest survey vessel to join the Royal Navy was commissioned into service at her homeport of Devonport
The impending closure of the Appledore Yard is another loss of merchant ship-building capacity even though its bread and butter,
A country well used to tragedy, saw another, on Lake Victoria in September.
At this time, when all cross-border ferry operators ex UK must be extremely apprehensive as leaving the EU approaches, Seatruck
I would have liked to have seen the face or hear the language of the OOW when he realised he
Since she was rebuilt in 2011, the mulie barge Cambria has been based in Kent, but in September, after her
At the end of the Southampton Boat Show in September, the barque Kaskelot, which had been on display, was sold
I am amazed the port industry has not made more thorough and timely comments about the potentially negative impact of
Apart from the Whitstable Harbour Barge Race, all the other barge races have a yearly points system that counts up
During World War II, most of France’s traditional sailing vessels were destroyed and after the war, the emphasis was on
The Fjords DA has announced it plans to add another all electric passenger vessel to its award winning fleet, with
Public access to documents charting the history of the River Thames and London’s Docks over nearly 250 years has been
In November 2017, I was greatly saddened by the disappearance and assumed loss of the Argentine submarine San Juan.
Over the years at Sea Breezes, we have highlighted the inherent weakness of some of our electronic navigation systems to
An ambitious plan to bring marine manufacturing and support industries back to the Upper Clyde, if fully realised, will result
Turquoise Yachts, the Turkish based shipyard under the same ownership as the Dutch Oceanco shipyard, has commissioned Ken Freivokh Design
Following the example of the Lindblad Cruise Line and National Graphic in the USA, Ponant, the French cruise line which
Recent readers of these Cruise News pages will possibly be familiar with the coverage given to “Bridge 2017”, a transatlantic
The history of former shipping lines are frequently well chronicled in various museums.
