The Abyssal Zone
Guernsey is an island that is part of the Channel Islands in the English Channel and is extremely near the French coast. Guernsey has been a port of call for shipping for over 2,000 years. Sitting close to the main sea routes into the English Channel. Today Guernsey still relies on shipping for most of its resources including food and imported goods. The island has a long distinctive history regarding sea legends, shipwrecks, ghost ships and sunken vessels.
Guernsey and the Channel Islands have some of the most dangerous coastal surroundings in the world. There have been almost a thousand shipwrecks in the Channel Islands over the centuries. With strong hazardous tides, dangerous reefs, large rocky outcrops and extremes of weather, from ferocious winds to blanket fog. Not until the advent of commercial flying in the 1930s, Guernsey relied exclusively on the sea for its links with the outside world, and the volume of maritime traffic over the years, combined with the difficulty of navigating the rock-strewn waters around the Channel Islands, inevitably resulted in a large number of shipwrecks, including countless disastrous events in which many lives were lost.
The are numerous rocks permanently above water, some of which are eighty feet high, there are extensive shoals and submerged ledges, some with only three feet of water over them at high tide. Within the reef there is a constant clashing of tides with fierce overfalls that can run at ten knots over the uneven bottom. At low water, the tide rips through the gullies between the rocks. Nearly three hundred ships are recorded as having come to grief on the Casquets. It was on this group of rocks that there occurred one of the most disastrous shipwrecks ever known in the English Channel.
It was extremely hazardous capturing these rocky outcrops, especially photographing these treacherous stone blockades at night and through the wet winter months. Photographing these, dangerous rock-strewn reefs, gave me a sense of terror, of how it must have felt to have your vessels smashed on these unforgiving entities.
One of the infamous shipwrecks was the SS Stella in 1899.
If you go by boat to Guernsey, in the Channel Islands, you will see a lighthouse standing on a group of rocks, some of them rising sheer out of the water, while others remain partially submerged. These Rocks are the dreaded Casquets, which lie about eight miles west of the island of Alderney, and twenty-three miles Northeast of Guernsey.
On Thursday, April 30th 1899 the Stella was on the first daylight service of the season from Southampton to the Channel Islands. She encountered fog on the way but continued to steam at full speed. When the Stella had run the estimated distance to the Casquets, nothing could be seen of the lighthouse. At 4.00pm Simultaneously:. A foghorn of immense strength sounds directly above Stella; The bow lookout yells “Stop her!”; An immense rock looms out of the fog 80 yards ahead. Reeks orders “Full Speed Astern” and spins the wheel hard to starboard. The Stella scrapes her port side. Another rock looms dead ahead, and the ship runs over submerged rocks at full speed. Her engines are torn from their mountings and water pours in along half her length. She runs into clear water and begins to settle, stern first. The Stella sank in 8 minutes. Of her passengers and crew 105 were lost and 112 saved.
The ship’s lifeboats were lowered very speedily, which was a miracle otherwise the loss of life would have been much greater. The fully loaded boats drifted for many hours at the mercy of rocks and fierce tides. The first two boats were not found until 7 a.m. on the Friday. One boat drifted for 23 hours before being rescued off Cherbourg. The first bodies were not recovered until Friday and the dead continued to be found for weeks after. One body was located at the mouth of the River Seine, and the final corpse was washed up on Guernsey nine months later. Most were found floating in their lifebelts, having died from exposure rather than drowning.
Recorded Shipwreck Timeline
1668 Archangel, of Venice, commanded by Giacomo de Guidin, went aground off Jersey
1676 Ten drowned when boat belonging to Jean Le Huquet struck the Reposeur des Pierres
1800 HMS Havick
1803 HMS Determinée struck rock approaching St Helier Harbour and sank
1806 Severn, flagship of Philippe d'Auvergne, wrecked in storm in Grouville Bay
1816 Wreck of La Balance off the Derouilles. 35 French drowned on 13 March
1823 Royal Charlotte, lost in gale near Cap de la Hague
1825 The Fanny
1826 Betsey and Jane
1826 Mail packet Hinchinbrook sinks after striking rocks near Alderney
1826 Mail packet Sir Francis Freeling run down by Swedish vessel near Portland on 6 September with loss of nine crew and seven passengers
1826 General Brock
1830 Quixote
1835 Juno
1842 Camilla, sunk off the Casquets January
1844 Cutter Laurel wrecked in Grouville Bay, 14 died on 30 July
1850 Polka wrecked on Minquiers on 16 September
1850 Superb wrecked on Minquiers on 24 September
1851 Cutter Ant wrecked on Pignonet rocks near Noirmont Point
1856 Amelia
1857 Ceres wrecked on voyage from Honduras to Jersey
1859 Express steamerwrecked off Corbiere
1861 ss Metropolis wrecked near Elizabeth Castle on 12 February
1863 Paris, wrecked outside St Helier on 28 July
1864 Jean Goujon
1870 Harvey and Westaway Monuments, Mailship Ps Normandy run down in dense fog by ss Mary of Grimsby on 17 March
1872 Norwegian barque Isabella Northcote aground off the Ecrehous on 2 November. Crew rescued
1873 Waverley wrecked in Little Russell Passage, Guernsey, in fog on 6 June
1875 Havre wrecked in Little Russell Passage, Guernsey, in fog on 16 February
1879 Reindeer damaged striking the Albert Pier on 14 January
1881 ss Caledonia lost on Oyster Rock off St Helier Harbour on 19 February
1884 Caesarea, sunk after collision with ss Strathesk off Cap de la Hague on way to St Malo on 27 June
1884 Sloop Louis wrecked on 9 January
1884 GDT wrecked at Millbrook on 26 January
1887 Brighton, wrecked in Little Russell Passage, Guernsey, en route from Weymouth in January
1888 Sailing ship Wonder lost seven miles off La Corbière
1890 Lugger Grace de Dieu wrecked on Mangeuse Reef
1892 Ibex, Capt Le Feuvre, struck rocks in Portelet Bay on way to St Helier
1895 Diana, January
1898 Channel Queen lost off Guernsey on 1 February
1899 ss Stella wrecked off Casquets
1900 ss Ibex wrecked off Guernsey on 5 January
1900 ss Rosegull sinks off La Corbière on 5 December
1904 Conqueror left Newfoundland on 8 November with a cargo of cod and was never heard of again
1905 Hilda struck rocks off St Malo with the loss of 128 lives
1915 Guernsey, wrecked on French coast in April
1917 The USS Summer sank in Channel Island waters in 1917 after being torpedoed
1918 The South-Western sank in the English Channel after being torpedoed
1923 Caesarea
1925 Atala
1926 ss Ribbledale wrecked on Jersey's north coast after dragging anchor in a storm
1932 Great Western Railway's St Patrick strikes a rock in fog off La Moye on 5 August
1935 Princess Ena, caught fire and sank on passage from Jersey to St Malo on 3 August
1949 Ketch Hanna, wrecked on rocks off L'Etacq
1950 mv Killurin wrecked on Sillette Reef off Noirmont Point
1951 mv John V laden with potatoes, overturns off Elizabeth Castle breakwater on 3 July
1955 British Rail cargo boats Winchester and Haslemere severely damaged in collision on 2 December
1961 Cargo ship mv Heron sank after hitting the Paternosters
1964 Guernsey Coast cargo ship sinks after collision in fog with Liberian Catcher off Cap de la Hague on 6 August
1979 Al Osman freighter rescued from rocks at l'Etacq on 11 February
