Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Not realising that the earlier bearing made by the Third Officer was incorrect, only
five minutes after his return to the bridge at 5.50 p.m., Captain Holman made the first
of two relatively quick changes to the
Archtor
's course. The first alteration was to set a
south-west by westerly course allowing a full quarter of a point for easterly deviation.
The ship continued on this course for ten minutes before Captain Holman made anoth-
er alteration to the course by changing it to west-south-west. After five minutes on this
newcourse,the
Archtor
strucktheCarphieRock,receivingaglancingblowonherfore-
foot, riding up and becoming partially stranded but not actually stopping her forward
motion. She rose up and listed over to port and the speed was checked by 1½ knots.
Captain Holman tried to correct the list by turning the helm to starboard and ordered
a sounding of the tanks fore and aft. The sounding found that water was coming in so
fast that due to the pressure of air in the sounding pipes it was difficult to take a proper
soundingintheforeholdandtheforetank.Withinanhourtheengineroombilgesbegan
tofillwithwater.The
Archtor
hadclearedtheCarphieRockbutintheprocesshadbeen
severely damaged and was now taking on water at a rate the crew was barely contain-
ing.Afterkeepingtheshipstoodoutinthewateratadistanceof¾milefromtheshore,
Captain Holman made a quick decision to continue on towards Inchkeith Light. By this
stage, the head of the
Archtor
was down towards the waterline and, due to the angle
of the ship, the propeller was partially out of the water. This meant the ship was only
making a speed of 4-5 knots (i.e. less than half its normal speed). Whilst the pumps on
board were able to cope with keeping the water down in the engine room and the No,
2 hold, they could not cope with the level of water coming into either No. 1 hold or the
collision compartment or the forepeak. Finally, at 11 p.m. that evening, at what must
have been an agonising few hours of uncertainty, Captain Holman steered the
Archtor
just off the pier heads at Leith Harbour. Fortunately it was high tide and Captain Hol-
man was able to beach the ship there at the high water mark. The
Archtor
lay forlornly
in the mud for five days before being lightened and brought into Leith Harbour under
her own steam.
The
Archtor,
despite suffering considerable damage, had still managed to limp her
way to Leith very late on the night of 17 December and the following day Captain Hol-
man had to account for what had happened under his command; he made known to the
vessel's agents in Leith that same day (18 December) his concern at the complete ab-
sence of the light on the Flannan Islands. Even taking on the seriousness of a problem
with the lighthouse not working, nobody could have realised there were far more seri-
ous implications than just a malfunction of some kind with the light.
ConsideringthefactthattheshipinitiallyranagroundontheCarphieRock,nearAn-
Isles, Captain Holman therefore had more serious and pressing matters to attend to, not
