Photograph of Captayannis, taken from the north side of the Clyde in Helensburgh.
On the evening of 27 January 1974, a severe storm caused the 4,576GRTCaptayannis to drag her anchor while she was waiting at the Tail of the Bank to deliver sugar to the James Watt Dock in Greenock.[2][4] Her captain ordered the engines to be started with the intention of running for the more sheltered waters of the Gareloch but before she could be brought to power she drifted onto the taut anchor chains of the BPtankerBritish Light.[2] The tanker suffered no damage but her anchor chains holed the sugar boat below the waterline, allowing water to pour in.[5]
Captayannis's Captain Theodorakis Ionnis, realizing that water was flowing in so fast that she was in imminent danger of sinking, opted to beach her in the shallow waters over the sandbank and steered to the desired spot where she stuck fast.[6] The pilot boats, the tug Labrador and Clyde Marine Motoring's 20 metre passenger vessel Rover came to assist. The vessel heeled over so far that it was possible for the crew to jump onto the deck of the Rover.[6] 25 of the crew were taken ashore aboard the Rover, but the Captain and four crewmen waited on the Labrador, standing off the stricken vessel. The ship finally succumbed the next morning, rolling onto her side.[6] She has lain there ever since.
Aftermath
Captayannis in 2006
The wreck has been looted extensively leaving just steel hull and superstructure. Some of the wooden decking remains in remarkably good condition after more than 40 years in the sea. The hull remains sound, though her thinner deck plates are starting to rust through with holes opening up in places. Through time Captayannis has become 'home' to marine life and birds. She has never been removed as confusion surrounds the identity of her owners and insurers – no one accepts responsibility for her removal. She is known to many locals simply as the "sugar boat".[6]
The wreck is a familiar sight near the Tail of the Bank and can be seen on satellite images.[7][8] The wreck is not to be confused with that of the French warship Maillé Brézé which sank nearby in 1940,[9] but was later removed and cut up in Port Glasgow in 1956.
The Firth of Clyde is the estuary of the River Clyde, on the west coast of Scotland. The Firth has some of the deepest coastal waters of the British Isles. The Firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre Peninsula. The Firth lies between West Dunbartonshire in the north, Argyll and Bute in the west and Inverclyde, North Ayrshire and South Ayrshire in the east. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. The Kyles of Bute separates the Isle of Bute from the Cowal Peninsula. The Sound of Bute separates the islands of Bute and Arran.
Port Glasgow is the second-largest town in the Inverclyde council area of Scotland. The population according to the 1991 census for Port Glasgow was 19,426 persons and in the 2001 census was 16,617 persons. The most recent census in 2011 states that the population has declined to 15,414. It is located immediately to the east of Greenock and was previously a burgh in the county of Renfrewshire.
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The PSComet was built in 1812 for Henry Bell, a Scottish engineer who with his wife had become proprietor of the Baths Hotel offering sea bathing in Helensburgh. On 15 August 1812, Bell's ship began a passenger service on the River Clyde, connecting Helensburgh to Greenock and Glasgow. This was the first commercially successful steamboat service in Europe. Bell obtained the engine from John Robertson of Glasgow, and the ship was built for him by John and Charles Wood of Port Glasgow.
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The Tail of the Bank is the name given to the anchorage in the upper Firth of Clyde immediately North of Greenock, between Inverclyde and Argyll and Bute. This area of the Firth gets its name from the deep water immediately to the west of the sandbank which marks the entrance to the navigable channel up the Estuary of the River Clyde.
Falls of Halladale was a four-masted iron-hulled barque, built at Greenock in Scotland in 1886 for the Falls Line of Glasgow. She was operated in the long-distance trading of bulk cargos. On 14 November 1908, she was wrecked on the Australian coast near Peterborough, Victoria, due to the negligence of the captain.
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MV Pentalina-B was a ferry which operated on a variety of Scottish routes. Launched in 1970 as MV Iona, she was the first drive-through roll-on/roll-off ferry built for the David MacBrayne fleet. She was the first ship in the company's history to have bridge-controlled engines and geared transmission, rather than direct drive. During her career she inaugurated more endloading linkspans than the rest of the fleet put together. Purchased by Pentland Ferries in 1997, she was renamed MV Pentalina-B and operated across the Pentland Firth until the arrival of their new vessel. In 2009, she was sold to a Cape Verde owner.
MV Eigg is a landing craft car ferry built for Caledonian MacBrayne in 1974. She was owned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited and operated mostly on the Oban to Lismore route from 1976 until 2013. She was the oldest vessel in the CalMac fleet at her retirement in April 2018. As of June 2018, she is based at Clare Island in County Mayo.
MV Juno was a passenger and vehicle ferry operated by Caledonian MacBrayne on the Firth of Clyde, Scotland between 1974 and 2007. She was the middle of three vessels nicknamed "streakers", the first in the Calmac fleet to be fitted with Voith Schneider Propellers. Juno left service in early 2007 and was laid up at Rosneath for 4 years. On 18 May 2011, she was beached there for scrapping and was gone by the end of July.
MV Lymington is a former ro-ro ferry, built in 1938 to serve the Isle of Wight. She is Britain's earliest example of a Voith Schneider driven ferry. Renamed MV Sound of Sanda in 1974, she served Western Ferries on the Upper Clyde until 1993.
MV Maid of Cumbrae was a British passenger ferry operated by Caledonian Steam Packet Company from 1953. In the face of the car ferry revolution, in 1972, she was converted to a 15-car ferry for the Dunoon to Gourock crossing. Sold to Italian owners in 1978, she operated, as Capri Express in the Bay of Naples until 2006, when she was scrapped.
MV Claymore (II) was David MacBrayne's last mail boat built in 1955. She served on the Inner Isles Mail on the west coast of Scotland until 1972. Subsequently sold for day cruising in the Greek Islands until 1993, she sank at her mooring in 2000.
SS Orteric was a Bank Line cargo and passenger steamship that was built in Scotland in 1910–11 and sunk by a U-boat in the Mediterranean Sea in 1915. In 1911 she took 960 Spanish and 565 Portuguese migrants to Hawaii to work on the sugar plantations.
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