Shipping Lines - A ship of two halves

TRAQUAIR STIRRED MEMORIES OF SHIPS OF TWO HALVES

During a coach excursion during the last day of 2022 the route included a visit to Melrose, another name in Geo. Gibson & Company’s Leith-based fleet. Following a lunch-time stop-over we headed for what is known as the oldest continuous inhabited house in Scotland - Traquair House. The historical property is built on the site of a hunting seat used initially by the early Scottish Kings as far back as the 12th century. Although not strictly a castle in the accepted sense but rather a fortified mansion, it is considered one of the must-see dwellings in the Borders. The coach parked briefly opposite the Bear Gates installed in 1738 and were closed on the departure of Prince Charles Edward Stuart in 1745. On closure the then Earl announced they would not re-open until a member of the House of Stuart returned to the throne. It being mid-winter the steep-pitched roof, dormers and pepper pot turrets could be clearly seen through the skeletal upper limbs and branches of the leafless trees surrounding the ancient property.

Now to the small cargo ship Traquair which had been built at Burntisland as Guernsey Queen in 1939. She had the misfortune in 1944 to collide with a mine off the French port of Boulogne and beached. She fared better however than the Montrose-built collier Southquay which disappeared with all hands in a similar incident off Ushant in 1921 after World War One. The Traquair survived the initial blast but lost her bow, then was re-floated, towed to Grangemouth Dockyard where a new section was constructed. On completion she returned to service by then being acquired by Geo. Gibson & Co. Ltd.

However, in 1956 misfortune struck again when she made headline news with, “The Captain Who Stayed On His Ship – The skipper of a little Scottish cargo boat did a Captain Carlsen act early yesterday (sic) when heavy seas heeled his ship over in the North Sea. He refused to leave his sinking ship even after all of his crew had been taken off. The Edinburgh-based captain was eventually rescued by a tug.

“His ship, the 565-ton Traquair ran into heavy seas on a voyage from Leith to Terneuzen in The Netherlands. Mountainous seas had caused the cargo of coal slurry to shift and an SOS call was sent out as the vessel began to sink. The Aldeburgh lifeboat was launched and other ships changed course to assist the stricken Traquair, 36 miles off the Suffolk coast. As she settled into the water, a passing motor vessel Gannet took off the crew of ten. The captain later followed being rescued by the Belgian tug Scaldis.”

A later Traquair was built in 1982, in two sections by design – the fore part of her hull at Troon then completed by Fergusons at Port Glasgow. After leaving the UK flag she had a series of foreign flag owners prior to being scrapped in Alang.

To finish off the year closer to home there was brief call at Montrose port on 30th December from the 120-metre long “multi-purpose heavy lifter” BBC Scandinavia. As is common-place these days she was registered at St. John’s, Antigua & Barbuda - not to be confused with the St. John’s shown on the stern of the big anchor handler Horizon Arctic which flies the red and white Maple Leaf.

The BBC Scandinavia was built in 2007 and operated by BBC Chartering GmbH on behalf of the Briese Schiffahrt Group based in Leer, Germany. At time of writing she was heading east bound for the Suez Anchorage. For the record, one of the last ships to arrive at Montrose in 2021 was Eems Sprinter.

Caption: A modern-day “tall ship” seen at Montrose. (Photo by Michael Clark).