Category: Boating, boats, ships and the sea

Thames shipwrecks: a race against time – programme 2

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The Dovenby

This summer the Port of London Authority and Wessex Archaeology is clearing a collection of shipwrecks from the Thames Estuary as part of a continuing programme to ensure that the river channel remains open to the world’s largest ships.

TV company Touch Productions has been on hand to capture the events as they happen, and the first of two Thames shipwrecks: a race against time programmes was shown on BBC a few days ago. For those who missed it I thought it would be good to mention some of the material here at intheboatshed.net.

The first programme focused on how the Thames has been fought over for centuries, and some of the ship wrecks that these struggles have left behind. In Programme Two, the TV company turned to the story of the British Empire, trade and shipping, with the Thames packed with thousands of ships and working boats.

The Dovenby

The Dovenby was sunk on her way back to London carrying guano. She was one of thousands of trading ships that made Britain the greatest trading nation the world had ever known. She and her self-made shipowner captain travelled the world, from Peru to Australia, San Francisco to Canada, at a time when 80 per cent of ships launched worldwide were built in British yards.

The programme examined the geophysics of the wreck, examined parts of her lifted from the sea bed, and showed the programme-makers having some fun sailing a Dovenby-like sailing barque.

Unknown Wreck 5051

This is a mystery ship, and one of hundreds that lie beneath the Thames. Various finds suggest that she sank in the mid-Victorian era, but what she was, what she was used for and who manned her remain unknown, although it is established that she had strong ties to the port of Woolwich.

The brick barge

The Thames barge is an icon famous in literature and paintings. For centuries, the barge was the main way of moving material from London to the smaller towns along the river. There were so many of these vessels that it was sometimes possible to walk across the Thames by stepping from barge to barge.

The programme looked at the lives of the people who lived and worked on these ships, the lightermen, the wherrymen and the thousands of others who lived on the river, and also the archaelogy of barges in general.

All that is known about the brick barge is that she sank on her way into London at the turn of the century, but the programme-makers took the opportunity to explore the history of barges on the Thames, for which we have some classic archaeological examples, including the 2nd century Blackfriars barge from the Roman era, a 15th century barge also found on the Thames, and the 17th century Shakespeare barge, which was also carrying bricks on the day she sank – although in her case the bricks were to be used in the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of 1666.

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Sailing fun on the East Coast

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Sue and Mike Feather took a series of photos of a race between a collection of gaffers from Harwich to the River Deben – and it looks like splendid fun to me. Follow the link to see some photos.

Mike also tells me that Sue and he were in the Old Gaffers race at Brightlingsea featured in Dylan Winter’s recent Vlog. Mike was the guy on the grey smack Transcur wearing yellow oilies and Sue was on the rib with Dylan taking photos. I’m beginning to wonder whether Dylan knows as many people as the Pope!

‘It was a really exciting race – lots of wind so very fast,’ says Mike. ‘Those boys put everything up in a blow and go like hell – bow wave coming half way up the stem and heaven help you if you broach with that lot up.’

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The story of the Northfleet begins to be explained


Several decades ago, I learned the song The Wreck of the Northfleet from the singing of an elderly south-coast fisherman called Johnny Doughty.

In addition to hearing him singing in public on a few occasions I was also lucky enough to meet Johnny socially a few times, as he was a family friend of one of my close musical friends at the time. Johnny, I can report, was a charming, jolly man who enjoyed an old-fashioned bottle of Guinness and revelled in company, particularly that of women.

But this post is about the story of the song, which tells of an unexplained collision in which large foreign vessel collides with the Northfleet, while she lay at anchor in the English Channel waiting for a fair wind to carry her westward on the first leg of the long voyage to Australia. The song as Johnny had it recounted that she had 500 souls on board; the crew of the foreign vessel fail to stand by and assist the sinking vessel, and some details of what happens as the ship sinks, including a fatal shooting as the captain enforced the rule that women and children must be allowed to escape first. It ends with the captain’s wife insisting on going down with her ‘dear husband’ and his ship.

I should add that the whole dramatic performance is enhanced by the song’s stately, hymn-like tune and a chorus that calls on the Almighty to protect the women and children affected by the tragedy.

One of the delights of Elliott O’Donnell’s book Strange Sea Mysteries published in 1926 is that it includes the first written account I’ve seen of the Northfleet tragedy. Although the captain’s wife did survive, much of old Johnny’s details were correct, despite the ‘Chinese whispers effect’ inherent in the oral tradition.

But what it also reveals that this was a peculiarly nasty and needless disaster, which was no doubt the reason this particular wreck should have lodged in people’s minds and imaginations when hundreds of others have been forgotten. From O’Donnell’s account it seems the crew of the ‘big and foreign vessel’ were seen covering the ship’s name and figurehead before beating their hasty retreat, and also that the Northfleet was anchored among many other ships at the time – and that neither they nor the coastguard on duty at nearby Dungeness reported being aware of the unfolding tragedy, despite the Northfleet’s distress rockets and flares. The flares, it seems, were taken to be signals requesting a pilot.

Even in a time when life was cheap and death was commonplace, the tragedy of the Northfleet fired the public imagination; subscriptions were raised to aid those most affected, and Queen Victoria was moved to write a letter of condolence to the captain’s wife, Mrs Knowles.

Here’s my version of the song as it comes down from old Johnny. I don’t pretend it’s my most polished performance, but there’s more than enough here to learn the song yourself, if you should wish to do so.