Photo: Athena Pictures
Update: Prince William co-piloted the Sea King helicopter which rescued two crew from the sinking Swanland. Prince William serves with RAF Valley in north Wales.
The bulk carrier Swanland is reported to have sunk this morning off north Wales in heavy weather. Two of the crew of eight have been rescued, one body has been recovered and five crew members are still missing. The Swanland was carrying a cargo of 3,000 tonnes of limestone when it sank between 20 and 30 miles north-west of the Lleyn peninsula.
One crewman recovered and five missing after sinking of cargo ship
In August of last year, the Swanland narrowly avoided grounding on Lizard Point, Cornwall following an engine failure. The Maritime and Coastguard Agency’s emergency towing vessel, Anglian Princess, towed the ship to safety into Falmouth.
Cargo ship Swanland saved from Lizard Point grounding
Thanks to Alaric Bond for pointing out the story.
News sources widely reported the sinking of the Swanland in the Irish Sea, at 2am on the 27th November, two crew were rescued, with another one being pulled from the sea dead, five crew are still missing. This ship had worked various coastal ports of Great Britain over the last few years such as Cowes, Ipswich, Sheerness & Teesport. Port chaplains of the Apostleship of the Sea (AoS) have today recounted how over the years they have visited the ship meeting the Russian crew and helped them with whilst in port. Sr Marian Davey (pictured) told how she would visit the ship whilst in Ipswich and give them Russian newspapers and take them to the seafarers’ centre so they could phone or email loved ones back home. Sr Marian said ‘it make ones think of the danger seafarers face, one day you can be visiting them, taking them into town and then hear how their ship had sunk with terrible loss of life.’
AoS Teesport chaplain, Tony McAvoy also shared how one of his team had also visited the Swanland whilst it berthed in Teesport, he recalled he received a good welcome onboard from the Russian crew whilst providing them with local port information and Russian news.’ Tony, who was visiting other ships docked in Teesport today noted that the sinking was very much in the mind of the crews of those other ships he visited.