It was a dark and stormy night
108 Years ago, on the night of December 8th 1874, one of the
worst storms in living memory occurred. Mountainous seas lashes at the North-east coast while a northerly gale spilled slates
and tumbled chimneys.
By early evening Redcar’s locals gathered to watch the
threatening sea. No doubt the pier companies’ shareholders were anxious too, lest the North Sea rob them of their investment.
The twin towns of Redcar and Coatham, unable to agree on a site for a joint pier, had each decided to build one. Redcar pier
was already complete while Coatham pier had reached 1700 of its planned 2000 foot length.
The alarm was raised shortly before midnight. Thomas Hood Picknett,
of the famous fishing family, was checking his boats when he spied a dismasted ship through the rain and sleet. By then the
raging sea was breaking over both piers. He warned the coastguard then began to beat a tattoo on the lifeboat drum to summon
help. The ship was the ‘Garibaldi’ a brig of 196 tons. Offshore the shrieking wind had torn away some of her canvas,
and the master, John Guy, ordered the foremast to be cut free, It also took the mainmast and bowsprit. Both anchors with 120
fathoms of cable were let go, but the Garibaldi rushed onto rocks 20 yards east of Coatham pier.
While the Redcar lifeboat ‘Burton-on –Trent’
was putting off, a hole was stove in her side so the launch was aborted. However, the coastguards were able to rescue the Garibaldi’s
seven man crew using rocket apparatus.
The Brig ‘Griffin’ smashed
through Coatham pier on 9th December 1874
One year after the pier was built. The ship became a total wreck.
Frightened
Meanwhile, farther out to sea, the brig ‘Griffin’
of Southampton has sailed from Whitby three days earlier with a valuable cargo of Elm, bound for Sunderland. Close-hauled,
she battled north, her skipper William Mundy unaware he was been driven relentlessly towards the rocks of the obscured coastline.
After being almost becalmed at 9 in the evening he shortened sail at 11pm in hope of weathering the approaching storm. By
the time the ‘Griffin’ reached Redcar the wind and sleet were so bad the crew had given up hope and taken to the
rigging, at 4am the ‘Griffin’ smashed into Coatham pier. As she breached the new girder work the frightened sailors
were able to jump to safety on the pier, then forlornly watch their big blunder unmanned into the night. The morning of December
9th revealed her breached only yards away.
Brigantine
The Griffin’s crew were not the only men to be shipwrecked
by Coatham pier that night. A Dundee schooner the 91 ton ‘Corrymbus’ bound from Bologne to South Shields slewed
into the incomplete seaward end of the structure two hours later. Her bowsprit and rigging carried away, The ‘Corrymbus’
eventually went ashore in the Tees estuary, her crew under master Alexander Petrie able to walk ashore at low tide. Although
not badly damaged she was a total loss, buried deep in sand.
After being hit twice Coatham pier also experienced a narrow
miss that same night. The brigantine ‘Express’ 300 tons, sailing from Bologne to Blyth found herself in distress,
driven ashore between the two piers on Lye Dams Scar, her crew saved.
The fifth vessel to come ashore at Redcar that fearful night
was the brig ‘Robert & William’ which managed to avoid the main traffic snarl-up by beaching at Tod Point,
opposite The Warrenby Steelworks.
Unseaworthy
In all, some thirty vessels came ashore on the Cleveland coast
during the storm. Many of the skippers were unqualified, claiming to ‘smell’ their course form port to port, in
vessels often unseaworthy and loaded to the gunnels with cargo. It is surprising loss of life was not higher, or little wonder
that the local church services regularly included the hymn “oh hear us when we cry to thee, for those in peril on the
sea.”
Taken from the Weekend Evening Gazette Saturday Oct 23,
1982
