Archaeology Notes
Event ID 827710
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Archaeology Notes
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/827710
HY20NW 8003 2454 0513
N58 55.6333 W3 18.65
NLO: Graemsay [name: HY 270 053]
Hoy Sound [name centred HY 236 072]
Stromness [name: HY 253 090]
Scapa Flow [name centred HY 36 00].
Formerly entered as HY20NW 8861.
For other wrecks in this group, see HY20NW 8001-2, HY20NW 8004-6 and HY20SW 8001-2.
For plan indicating the relative locations and orientations of blockships in this group, see Macdonald 1990, 108.
For the stern portion of this vessel (NMRC NZ46SW 14), still in English waters, see NMRS MS/829/53.
Quality of fix = PHOT
Horizontal Datum = OGB
Buoyage =
General water depth = 8
Orientation of keel/wreck = 045225
Circumstances of Loss Details
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The motor tanker INVERLANE was mined on 14 December 1939 off South Shields. The bow section was used as a blockship in Burra Sound.
Surveying Details
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15 October 1975. This particular wreck dries to reveal approximately 15.2 metres at the bows. It is the wreck of a tanker, of which only the bows and midships section remain. The name can just be made out on bows to be the INVERLANE. An estimate of its size would be about 16,000 tons.
Report by CPO Dunford, RAF Lincoln, 15 August 1975.
13 August 1976. The above report is confirmed. The wreck lies on an orientation of 094/274 degrees and is approximately 300 feet (91.4 metres) long.
Report by Dept of Harbours, Kirkwall, Orkney, 5 July 1976.
21 July 1988. The wreck's position is approximately 58 55 38N, 003 18 39W. The length is about 70 metres (229 feet). The keel is orientated 045/225 degrees approximately. The foremast is still standing. The bow stands about 12 metres above low water [lat], and the mast is approximatley 5 metres higher.
Source; aerial photography, dtd 6 June 1975.
Note: The tidal state was apparently approximately 0.6 metres above chart datum or lowest astronomical tide.
Hydrographic Office, 1995.
(Classified as motor tanker: date of loss cited as 30 May 1944). Inverlane: the bows and mifdships portions only of this vessel were sunk as a blockship in Burra Sound.
Registration: Dublin. Built 1937. 9141grt. Length: 145m. Beam: 19m.
(Location of loss cited as N58 55.55 W3 18.68).
I G Whittaker 1998.
Photographed from the air by RCAHMS, 1997.
(Undated) information in NMRS.
The Blockships of Burra. The INVERLANE has been punished over several decide with the tidal currents. Marine corrosion has also played a part. Finning through the INVERLANE's many corridors the pipework is encrusted with with orange anenomes. The occasional rope lay on the sand covered deck. There are numerous open hatches and doorway letting in daylight and alowing easy escape if necessary. Outside the ship kelp anchored to the hull is caught in the strong currents. The tide also flushes the area clear of silt. Back on deck tufts of grass grow in the corners and there is a tremendous stench of bird droppings from the birds colonising the superstructure.
Source: Diver Magazine [unstated year], 27-8.
Length: 145m
Beam: 19m
GRT: 9141 [also cited as 8900]
The prominent bow and mast of the projecting bow and midships portion of this steam tanker [not motor tanker as previously entered] make this a prominent feature and the only member of the Burra Sound group to remain visible above the surface. She remains a popular diving wreck, as does the after portion of the wreck. This lies in 10.5m charted depth at N54 56.3 W1 20.9, off Seaburn, Sunderland, NE England (BSAC Wreck Register, East Coast, no. 18 (164), dated 1987).
The vegetable, oil and wine tanker was built by Vegesack at Bremen, Germany in 1938; an oil engine and an unspecified number of boilers (which survive in the English portion) drove a single screw. She was mined off South Shields on 14 December 1939, broke into two portions, and was declared a constructive total loss. The larger (forward) portion was sunk as an additional blockship in Burra Sound in 1944 and was frequently visited by recreational divers until the winter of 1996/7, when much of the structure collapsed. Only the focsle now retains its recognizable shape.
No further details of the service or commercial history of the ship are apparently available and there is no published photograph of the ship in service. The circumstances under which she first passed into British mercantile service and was sunk as a blockship (later than the others and after the construction of the Churchill Barriers) are not recorded in the available literature.
Burra Sound forms a narrow gap between Hoy Skerries (to the SW) and the island of Graemsay. Several wrecks are charted in a general depth of between 5 and 12m; the sound is subject to pronounced tidal flows.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 1 October 2002.
BSAC Wreck Register 1987; R and B Larn 1998; R Macdonald 1998; I G Whittaker 1998.
UKHO chart 35 (1991).
(Selected) vertical air photography: CPE/SCOT/UK 185 2435-6, flown 9 October 1946, and Fairey Coastal Colour (FCC) 7343 43 369-70, flown 6 June 1975.
Information from RCAHMS (KM, RJCM), 25 October 2002.
This 9000 ton tanker was launched at Vegesack, Germany in Deember 1938, and mined in 1939. In 1944, her bows and midships portion were sunk in Burra Sound as a blockship, being one of the last vessels to be positioned for this purpose. Her bow and masts were visible above the surface until winter 1996 when part of the hull collpased and much of the wreck disappeared. On 29 January 2000, she sank finally below the surface in a storm.
The remains of this wreck are now completely below the surface, and are understood to be buoyed. Only 'big metal plates' are said to survive.
Information from Mr R Forbes (Stromness), 25 October 2004.
