‘When he awoke he was conscious of a ghostly silence’
This week, in the second instalment of the sinking of the MV Loch Seaforth, Sandy Neil continues the story as islanders are left picking up the pieces – literally
This month is the 50th anniversary of the sinking of the MV Loch Seaforth, the forerunner to its namesake plying the Stornoway to Ullapool route today, and the only CalMac ferry to be lost.
On March 22, 1973, on its way from South Uist to Oban, the old “accident prone” mail boat struck rocks in Gunna Sound between the isles of Tiree and Coll, with over 40 passengers and crew on board.
John Jordan, now 72, was one of those who had to abandon ship that stormy night. “We were out there for four hours, in an open rowing boat, in the middle of the Minch, in a force 10 gale, half of that time not knowing if you will be picked up, or if anyone knows anything is wrong,” he told The Oban Times, telling his tale of terror for the first time in print last week.
Here we tell this second part of the story, thanks to contemporary newspaper reports, and island memories collected by Dr John Holliday and others for the Tiree Historical Centre’s An Iodhlann newsletter during the incident’s 40th anniversary.
By coincidence, two senior CalMac officials had also been on board when the ship struck rock: Mr NJD Whittle, general manager of the company, and Mr Morris Little, the chairman.
Mr Little told The Oban Times then: “While no-one expected this to happen, it was an enlightening experience to be present and see for ourselves the magnificent manner in which our crew reacted to the situation.”
But John recalled: “They did not get everyone.”
When the crew returned to save the stricken Loch Seaforth stuck on the rocks, they made an unexpected discovery. Not everyone had got into the lifeboats: they had left behind a passenger, who slept through the shipwreck. “Willie Miggin of Enfield, County Meath, was touring the west coast and was a passenger on that voyage,” recorded The Sunday Post. “Wanting to lie down he found an empty cabin down below and fell asleep. When he awoke he was conscious of a ghostly silence throughout the ship. No throb, throb, throb of the engines. No footsteps or voices above deck. He knew the ship hadn’t docked. He could feel its sway as it ploughed through the water. Mystified, he left the cabin and walked along the corridors. Strange, not a soul in sight. He looked in the cafeteria – and stared goggle-eyed. It was empty too, with half-finished cups of tea and half-eaten biscuits on the counter.
“When he came up on deck, it was deserted. Now he really had the jitters. It was like the Marie Celeste. What calamity had befallen everyone? How could the ship sail without engines?
“He pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Gingerly he walked towards the bow. He nearly jumped out of his shirt when voices shouted, ‘Ahoy, there!’ He was being hailed by some men on the bridge. ‘Where did you come from?’ they asked.
“‘Never mind where I came from,’ said Willie. ‘Where has everyone else gone – and where are we going?’
“Willie was flabbergasted when he was told what had happened. The ship, the Loch Seaforth, was being towed by a tug. It had run aground on the rocks of Tiree. The crew had warned passengers to take to the lifeboats. They’d carefully ticked off every name on their berth list.
“Willie had been overlooked because his name wasn’t on the list, and his berth was supposed to be empty! He’d slept like a log through the whole hubbub of the drama. Imagine sleeping through a shipwreck!”
The vessel was taken to the Gott Bay pier and tied up - a costly mistake.
“She should have been put around the side of the pier, but there was a MacBrayne’s chief of operations, and he thought there was no problem, and he over-ruled the skipper, which strictly speaking he couldn’t do, and said she must go on the front of the pier, and of course
that was us cut off,” Donniel Kennedy recalled to John Donald MacLean in 1998.
“The captain wanted to beach her, because he knew what would happen, but the top men aboard, they shouldn’t have taken over the captain, because he’s in charge of the boat. But they’ll be wishing now they did it,” Donald Iain Kennedy told Bernie Smith and Dr John Holliday in 2012: “It cost them a fortune.”
During the night, the boat started to take water more seriously.
“Engineers inspected the Loch Seaforth yesterday after she was towed by tug to Scarinish and reported that she had a buckled plate and ‘a hole as big as a fist’ under the waterline,” said a newspaper cutting from March 23 1973.
“Throughout the night the list to port worsened and at breakfast time it was no longer safe for the crew to remain aboard. The crew had gathered belongings and equipment and were watching from the pier when the ship rolled over.
“An eye witness at Scarinish said today: ‘She went over very slowly on her port side, her superstructure smashing against the pier. I don’t know how much damage has been done to the ship but it looks pretty bad.’
“Caledonian MacBrayne had been hoping to tow the Loch Seaforth to her home base at Gourock for further inspection and repairs following her grounding.”
“She settled on her side in six metres of water the very next day, when the port-side cattle door became submerged,” wrote Nick Robins and Donald Meek in The Kingdom of MacBrayne (2006).
“We were on the pier that morning,” remembered Donald Iain Kennedy in 2012. “We were supposed to [take off] half a million [pounds worth] of clams, shellfish and prawns on it, and we were all preparing to sling it off, and the next thing, she just went, right against the pier. The bulkhead gave way, the front part of the engine. The water just gushed in. Brand new Jeeps, and vans. They were all over the place. Gordon Donald made a song about it.”
The wreck was now blocking most of the pier. Passengers for the ferry were able to embark in a small boat from the slip beside the pier, but large cargo movement – cars and cattle – was virtually impossible.
“The Columba (now the MV Hebridean Princess) made a special run to Tiree until the Claymore took over the service. The puffer Glencloy was chartered to take cargo from Oban to Coll and Tiree. Loch Seaforth ... blocked the pier so that passengers had to be ferried ashore using the ferryboat Iona,” explained Duckworth and Langmuir in West Highland Steamers.
“During April the pier continued to be blocked, the Glencloy kept up the service for general cargo, but vehicles and cattle could not be loaded. The company then chartered the Dutch vessel Johanna Buitalaar for special cattle shipment from the Tiree sales, she being just able to squeeze between the sunken vessel and the pier.”
“Folk were going out with Land Rovers, going up and down Gott Bay picking up packets of cigarettes,” recalled Donniel Kennedy in 1998. “They were ruined [by] the seawater. But they were pulling out the coupons, and throwing away the cigarettes!
“There must have been a lot of fish on board, and the odd barrel of beer came out of it...
“And of course there was a float. And someone got the idea that these floats had survival gear, including a very good expensive knife, so he tried to open the float,
and immediately the thing burst into life, inflated and whistles and sirens, he just had to run for it!”
“The tide line of Gott Bay was covered with dead fish,” remembered Fiona MacKinnon in 2012. “A number of tables and chairs from the Loch Seaforth came into the houses, and, for some reason, lots of burns medicine.”
“When she hit, the first thing they did was send down a diver to clear the bar. To make sure folk didn’t hurt themselves more than anything, diving down for stuff,” Donniel Kennedy told John Donald MacLean in 1998.
“We took all the whisky and everything off,” recalled Donald Iain Kennedy in 2012. “The directors, that were in, there were six of them in. I picked one [bottle] up and one of the top ones said, ‘Take a dram. It’s only going to get dumped anyway. We’re only taking it off the boat in case of a scandal’ he said, ‘In case anybody gets drowned trying to get it.’ She was still at the pier. There were a couple of divers in.”
“It was a strange time travelling back to Tiree on the Claymore after the Seaforth sank,” recalled Peter Knapman to The Oban Times this month.
“The sinking coincided with my parents purchasing a house in Tiree and my father had arranged to bring a van load of furniture only to find that the Seaforth was blocking access to the Tiree pier.
“The van was left stranded on the pier in Oban with a promise that it would be delivered to Tiree on the Glencloy. Somehow the Glencloy squeezed itself between the sunk Seaforth and the pier! The van was unloaded with the instruction - if you are not back in an hour then the van stays in Tiree. It was a very hectic hour but we managed!”
“It took over six weeks for the stricken vessel to be moved,” explained West Highland Steamers. “She was lifted with a giant barge and moved to the sands of An Tràigh Mhòr, Gott Beach, where she was patched up. On May 11 the giant floating crane Magnus III (chartered from Risdon Beasley of Southampton) arrived and lifted Loch Seaforth, moving her to the beach. She was patched and refloated, then left in tow for Troon where she was scrapped by the West of Scotland Shipbreaking Co. So ended the career of one of the best ships of the Stornoway service.”
The ill-fated Loch Seaforth was to be sold for scrap in Troon, where she would fetch between £10,000 and £12,000 – salvaged from Tiree in an operation that cost her owners, MacBrayne’s, “tens of thousands of pounds”.
“In a massive salvage operation the Loch Seaforth was lifted right out of the water by a mammoth German crane and beached half a mile away – out of the way,” reported The Scottish Daily Express on May 24 1973.
“Her owners said she would never sail under her own power again.
“Colonel Patrick Thomas, chairman of the Scottish Transport Group, said during a visit to Tiree: ‘We have lost a lot of money and, what is equally important, one of the units of our fleet. We must stress, however, that the boat will not be abandoned on the beach’.”
“The salvage operation was praised by Colonel Thomas: ‘The men have done an absolutely fantastic job. They moved the boat in 48 hours flat. We cannot stress how grateful we are to them.’
“The community showed its appreciation of the removal of the boat by throwing a party for the salvage crew – it was a British operation with some German equipment and crew.
“Scarinish turned out in force for the dance – the local accordion band vied with the Tiree Piping Society for musical honours. Compliments were paid in English and German. Songs were sung in both languages. And the saga of the Loch Seaforth ended in noisy and joyful camaraderie in the village hall – with the hulk of the island ferry bathed in moonlight on the beach in Gott Bay.”
“The MacBrayne ferry was towed by two tugs to Troon in an operation that took 21 hours,” reported The Scottish Daily Express on May 24 1973.
The Loch Seaforth left behind one final mystery, Donald Iain Kennedy said in 2012. “It was funny when she left, when the salvage team took her away, she was minus a prop. They never found it.”
▮ You can read the full story at www.obantimes.co.uk. If you want to share your memories of the sinking of the Loch Seaforth with John, or meet up with him on his trip to Tiree, please contact him via us at editor@obantimes.co.uk.