Shipwrecks
On September 27, 1915, while sailing for Scapa Flow, HMS Caribbean (known as RMS Dunottar Castle before being requisitioned for wartime service) foundered off Cape Wrath in bad weather. A tow by HMS Birkenhead was unsuccessful, and 15 died. An inquiry later blamed the ship's carpenter for being insufficiently familiar with the ship and for failing to shut all the scuttles—like most of the crew, he had joined the ship just 10 days earlier. The ship served in various capacities during World War I, but she was best known for reducing the voyage time from Southampton, England, to Cape Town, South Africa, by half in the 1890s, and for transporting many famous soldiers and statesmen to and from the Cape Colony during the Second Boer War. The wreck was found in 2004, 35 miles off Cape Wrath, undisturbed except for fishing nets.
Read more about this topic: Cape Wrath
Famous quotes containing the word shipwrecks:
“... overconfidence in one’s own ability is the root of much evil. Vanity, egoism, is the deadliest of all characteristics. This vanity, combined with extreme ignorance of conditions the knowledge of which is the very A B C of business and of life, produces more shipwrecks and heartaches than any other part of our mental make-up.”
—Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)