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By David Chamberlain
It is seldom that a lifeboat coxswain’s reputation is brought into disrepute.
Nevertheless, the name of Robert Wilds, skipper of the North Deal Lifeboat Mary Somerville, was being bandied about the town as ‘indifference to human suffering and of cowardice’.
This cut deep into a man who had and would save 222 lives from the Goodwins and the Downs.
The reason for this smear was because he could not put the lives of his crew at risk, in conditions which were so horrendous it would have been madness to attempt to launch the lifeboat.
The incident that caused this slander happened on the night of Saturday, November 26, 1881.
At midday, the 206 feet iron full rigged sailing ship, British Navy, was towed into the Downs and anchored-up.
Forty minutes later when the Trinity House pilot left the vessel he commented to her master, Captain Skelly, that the weather looked unpromising.
By 2pm the wind had increased to gale force and as evening approached, in the words of the second officer, Rice Sibley, it blew a ‘perfect hurricane’ along with rain and sleet.
The British Navy’s hold was full of general cargo and her destination was Sydney, Australia.
As the south-west wind worsened and shrieked through her rigging the more experienced hands considered the weather was likened to that of Cape Horn.
As the sea in the Downs became heavier and the strong flood tide started to get a hold, the master ordered that more chain should be released. Just before midnight and high tide, a link on the anchor chain parted.
In haste the starboard anchor was let go which was to hold the ship for another hour - until a huge sea snapped that chain also.
Wind and tide swept the heavily laden British Navy out of control through the busy anchorage.
In desperation Captain Skelly ordered his crew to set the stay and jib sails to try and steer the stricken ship out of danger as she drifted through the Downs anchorage.
Within minutes the jib sheet was carried away and any steerage of the British Navy was lost.
As more efforts were being made to set sail she careered into a similar size sailing ship, the Larnaca.
The 1,217 tons of vessel shuddered as each hull slammed up against the other with their spars and rigging entangling.
Below decks of the British Navy the bulkheads were giving way and the doomed ship’s crew was in chaos. Sea water started to gush in filling the bilges and the men were hurriedly making for the deck.
Blocks and rope were raining down from the rigging and the yards were swinging dangerously from the masts.
In the turmoil the second officer had jumped ship and found himself on the deck of the Larnaca - alongside five more of his crew who had done the same.
With a sickening sound of tearing steel the British Navy was wrenched away from the other ship and drifted down tide sinking.
The storm raged throughout the night and many of the other vessels were burning flares of distress in the anchorage.
From the deck of the Larnaca, men could be heard shouting from the masts of the British Navy, which were protruding above the waves from the sunken wreck … but no assistance could be given.
However, at daybreak, a tug managed to save the cook and two seamen from the masts of the wreck, which were the only survivors, apart from the six men who had abandoned their deck for the Larnaca’s.
Weeks later, the salvage company, Alfred Gann and Co, recovered some of the cargo and dispersed the wreck using explosives.
An interesting find on the remains of the British Navy, 90 years later, was discovered by sports divers.
It was a large bell with the name Lanarca engraved on it.
This mystery was solved as the wrecks story unfolded.
The Lanarca survived the storm; however, the violent embrace of the two ships had displaced the other ship’s bell onto the deck of the ill fated British Navy, which was lost.
