Coral still on seabed

The masts of the 1902 schooner Coral of Cowes are still visible in the Bay of Souda, in north west Crete, a year and a half after she sunk.

Press reports at the time said the body of Hugh Kerr Bradley Roberts, 74, the owner of the Fred Shepherd schooner, was found with the boat, which sunk in a shallow part of the bay, near Chania. The owner’s dog, Friar Tuck, was found clinging to the half-sunken boat.

There are still hopes that the boat will be raised, with possible interest from the Greek classic boating hub that is the island of Spetses, but as our photos of June 2022 show, the masts are still visible a few hundred yards o the beach.

Coral of Cowes was built by White Brothers as Bamba III and renamed in 1923, after which she won the King’s Cup in 1926 and 1928. She underwent a restoration in Cape Town in 2005 and later at Peake Yacht Services in Grenada under the owner of the time.

The 98ft (30m) schooner was well-known and much loved across the classic boat world, having raced extensively at Cowes, in the Caribbean and in the Mediterranean.