The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Local History for Tyne & Wear
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ralph
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The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Post by ralph »

From time to time, often on foggy days, ships end up on the rocks at the Groyne - Adelphotis II immediately comes to mind, where she eventually had to be scrapped on the beach. I have come across an old photo in my box showing the Ducansby Head that was a 'temporary' casualty, being later towed off at high tide. I cannot now remember when this happened, can anyone remember the year?
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Re: The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Post by Jarrow Pete »

It was either 1975 or 1976 when the collier ran aground at the Groyne.
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Re: The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Post by ralph »

Thanks Pete.
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Re: The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

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It was 1976, I knew the pilot well, it was thick fog and the captain of the ship, who came to the Tyne regularly insisted on picking his Pilot up inside the piers against the Pilots advice, but as the Tyne was a non compulsory district (Take note Mr A) he was within his rights to pick the pilot up anywhere he chose or even do without a Pilot. Anyway by the time the pilot climbed up the ladder and made his way to the bridge and got to the radar it was too late and the ship ended up on the wrong side of the Groyne, as was said earlier, the ship was towed off later and amazingly suffered no damage. The pilot died in 1989, just incase you thought it was me :wink:
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Re: The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Post by ralph »

Thanks Pilot, I never even thought of you being responsible :D . From being a kid, a ship aground was always (for the observers), very exciting, and a crowd would quickly gather to have a look. This was one of those occasions. It was still quite foggy when I went down there, and because of this, the other picture I took on the Groyne shows more fog than ship! We tend to forget that when these accidents occur, as interesting as it is for the rest of us, for those in command of the ship it must be their worst nightmare come true.

There seems to be surprisingly few photos of these events to be found on the Internet, and yet there must be photos recording them somewhere out there. They must be hidden away in old albums or stored in the archives of libraries. Let's hope that someone eventually makes them available, they are most interesting.
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Re: The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Post by Pilot »

Its a good picture Ralph and brought back memories for me, luckily this sort of thing doesn't happen very often and yes its a nightmare for those in charge, the captain of this vessel went on to sail in and out of the Tyne for many years and the Pilot involved was very well respected on the river and retired in 1988 and was unlucky enough to get just a short time on his pension before he passed away in 1989. I was only once in a similar situation in 26 years of pilotage my incident was on the Black Middens and caused by total engine and electrical failure, we were lucky it was dead low water on a spring tide and the bow settled in mud before reaching the rocks, we were off so quick the people waiting on the quay for the ship didn't realise we had been ashore.
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Re: The 'Duncansby Head' ashore at The Groyne

Post by ralph »

Awful though it still is, with engine and power failure, the Pilot and Captain must beathe a sigh of relief - time for the Chief Engineer to come up with some reason that doesn't put him aground :D :D
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