Maritime record LWT 834 - Wreck of a craft

1820 wreck of craft which stranded on the Beacon Ridge during a gale, while attempting to reach Lowestoft; a wooden sailing vessel.
Status: Casualty

NB: The accounts for losses off Lowestoft in this gale of 20 to 22-OCT-1820 are very confused, and this vessel may be identifiable with any one of the other accounts for this gale (q.v.), particularly with the vessel reported as lost on the Home Sand, in the vicinity of the Beacon Ridge:

`...in the violent gale of Saturday and Sunday last...' (1)

`In the gale of last Friday night...' (2)

`Yarmouth, Oct. 23. We had a severe gale of wind at South yesterday...other vessels are reported to have foundered off Lowestoffe...' (3)

`[Lowestoft] On Sunday morning last, a heavy gale of wind from SSW was experienced at this place, which, towards noon, had increased to a hurricane. The whole sea was one continued foam, and a most tremendous surf broke upon the shore. About 12 o'clock, the inhabitants of the town had the pain of witnessing the distress of a vessel, which, in attempting to gain the inner roads, through the Stamford Channel, struck upon a sand called Beacon Ridge, and in about the space of 7 minutes, went to pieces, and all on board perished...

`A second vessel soon after followed, and, in making the same attempt, met with the same melancholy fate, and all the crew were lost. The loss of these two vessels (names unknown) was so awfully sudden, as to afford no time for assistasnce from shore.' (4)

[NB: The phrase "Sunday morning last" was usually used in Norfolk/Suffolk dialect to indicate "a week last Sunday", not "last Sunday", i.e. the Sunday just past. It appears that this item has been copied verbatim from a Norfolk/Suffolk source, since the date of loss has not been altered accordingly - a not uncommon practice in such wreck reports.]

Crew Lost: all (4)

Date of Loss Qualifier: A