Stranded ships...

11:29am Thursday 4th September 2008

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BRIAN Keitch's very interesting article in last week's Penarth Times (August 28) "Ships Ashore" covered a number of vessels which came to grief on our coast.

Perhaps I can add one more to his list - the "New Westminster City". She was a brand new large bulk carrier which had only just been put into service by her owners - the Cardiff-based Reardon Smith Line.

In 1972 this huge ship was coming in to Cardiff Docks for the first time with a full load of timber aboard.

Although she had a pilot aboard and tugs in attendance, somehow she strayed to port out of the main dredged channel and became stranded on the hard sandstone bedrock at the base of Penarth Head.

The tugs failed to pull her off. As the tide went out she was left high and dry.

She had to wait until the next high tide to be floated off and needed considerable repairs to her hull before she could resume service.

A few months later a large tanker also went aground within a few hundred yards of the same spot. It was as a result of these incidents that a new buoy was placed off Penarth Head to mark the port-hand side of the channel.

David Morris Jones Uppercliff Close Penarth