Maritime record MWX1853 - Petronille

Ran ashore on Chesil Beach in a heavy gale and thick fog. She had been out upwards of 170 days and the crew suffering severely from scurvy and scarcity of provisions. The vessel was in West Bay on the pebble beach, below the village of Chesil with her back broken. Efforts were made by the Portlanders to rescue the crew. In raging seas and in great personal danger, the captain, 2nd. mate and four coloured seamen were saved. The captain had been ill for four months and died shortly after being brought ashore, another man died of injuries. Three men and a boy were drowned. The Dutch Consul, G. C. Welsford, came to the scene, gave every assistance to the crew and engaged 70 men to bring the cargo of rice ashore. The vessel, between 4 and 5 hundred tons burthen was uninsured, and the crew had for some time been living on dried peas and beans. A gravestone in St Georges church, Portland, marks the burial place of some of the crew. One man had died on the homeward voyage. (2) Source (3) states nationality as Belgium. Owner: De Gang Crew: 11 Crew Lost: 6 Date of Loss Qualifier: A Additional sources cited in United Kingdom Shipwreck Index: DCC 18 12 1856

The building date for this vessel is an estimate based on an average age at wrecking of twenty years. This average is derived from those vessels wrecked on the Dorset coast whose age at wrecking is known.

Net tonnage

<1> Larn, Richard, 1992, United Kingdom shipwreck index, Extracted 23 November 1992 (Index). SWX5030.

<2> 1897, Southern Times, 18-DEC-1856 (Serial). SWX2003.

<3> Larn, R, and Larn, B, 1995, Shipwreck index of the British Isles, volume 1 : Isles of Scilly, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset Section 6, Dorset (AJ) Vol 1 (Monograph). SWX4541.

<4> Le Pard, G, 1995-2003, Dorset Coast Forum Maritime Archaeological Database, Shipwreck 650 (Digital archive). SWX8707.

<5> Colledge, J J, 1969, Ships of the Royal Navy. Volume 1: major ships, p263 (Monograph). SWX4826.

<6> Cumming, E, 2014, The Portland Shipwreck and Maritime Incident Directory (Monograph). SDO14012.

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 901070 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 2 2024 1:39PM