Archaeology Notes

Event ID 758556

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Archaeology Notes

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/758556

ND49NE 8016 4823 9968

N58 52.9083 W2 53.8867

NLO: Glimps Holm [name: ND 472 991]

Glimps Holm [name: ND 472 991]

Glimpsholm Skerry [name: ND 482 995]

Scapa Flow [name centred HY 36 00].

Formerly entered as Site no. 8905.

For adjacent and successor causeway (Churchill Barrier no. 2), see ND49NE 15.

For other blockships in this group, see HY40SE 8002, and ND49NE 8014-15, 8017-21 and ND49NE 8023-4.

For plan indicating the relative locations and orientations of blockships in this group, see Macdonald 1990, 125.

Quality of fix = PHOT

Horizontal Datum = OGB

Orientation of keel/wreck = 080260

Circumstances of Loss Details

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The steel single-screw steamship EMERALD WINGS built in 1920, sunk as a blockship at the SW end of Skerry Sound barrier. Built at Cherbourg, registered London, ex NICOLAOS BAIKOS, DEPUTE PIERRE GOUJON)

Sources: Ferguson 1985; MacDonald 1990

Surveying Details

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14 March 1972. A position of 58 52 53N, 002 53 54W, or bearing 213.5 degrees and 746 metres from Lamb Holm trig stn (61). The wreck is protected by Glimpsholm Skerry, and is small but intact. Most of the hull dries but is in a weak state and will soon collapse.

Report by Undermarine Operations, 5 March 1972.

2 March 1976. There is an isolated mast standing 19 metres above the mean highwater springs line at 58 52 54.5N, 002 53 53.2W. There is also a line of scattered wreckage above mean low water extending 80 metres north, 80 metres west and 20 metres south from the mast.

Source: Ordnance Survey aerial photography dated 16 May 1973.

27 May 1982. The wreck is referred to as a 'dredger like vessel'. The mast always shows and most of deck.

Source; BSAC Wreck Register, vol V - ILSENSTEIN entry.

Notes: presumably this is this wreck, but possibly not the EMERALD WINGS.

27 August 1992. The wreck is now well dispersed with only the boiler showing at low water.

Source: MacDonald 1990

Hydrographic Office, 1995.

(Classified as steel steamship: no cargo specified, but former names cited as Nicholas Baikas and Depute Pierre Goujon, and date of loss as 13 July 1940). Emerald Wings: this vessel was scuttled as a blockship in Skerry Sound.

Registration: London. Built 1920. 2139grt. Length: 82m. Beam: 12m.

(Location of loss cited as N58 52.90 W2 53.88).

I G Whittaker 1998.

Skerry Sound is not noted as such on the 1998 edition of the OS 1:50,000 map. The name apparently applies to the ill-defined sound leading E from St Mary's Bay {name centred ND 473 002] into Holm Sound [name centred ND 500 992] between Lamb Holm [name: HY 485 003] to the N and Glimps Holm [name: ND 473 992] to the S. It is now closed by Churchill Barrier No. 2 (ND49NE 15: ND 4822 9999 to ND 4785 9952).

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 18 August 2005.

Skerry Sound is not noted as such on the 1998 edition of the OS 1:50,000 map, but the current edition of the OS (GIS) notes the name around ND 4814 9995, between Glimps Holm and Glimpsholm Skerry.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 28 March 2007.