Black Watch: Shalstane, Fair Isle, Atlantic

HZ17SE 8003 c. 197 700

N59 31 W1 39.1

NLO: Fair Isle [name centred HZ 21 72]

Fogli Stack [name: HZ 194 709]

Malcolm Head [name: HZ 195 706].

Formerly also entered as Site no. 8003.01, and classified in error as ship.

Black Watch: [max. date] 1877

In ballast Bremen (Bremerhaven?) to New York, caught in tides during light winds came ashore in full sail Valued at £11 000, launched only four months previous at Windsor

Archive Ref: "Orc 10/11/1877; OH 28/11/1877; JoG 27/9/1877; ST 22/9/1877

Source: Shetland Archive Service [undated].

MS/3025, no. 732.

19 September 1877, BLACKWATCH, new, of Windsor, N.S., Bureau Veritas 3/3, for 8 yrs from Jan. 1877, last survey 9.77, wooden ship, 1,318 tons, 23 crew, Master R. W. Newcomb, Owner B. Smith, Windsor, N.S., departed Bremerhaven for New York, in ballast, wind NW by W half W3, stranded, W. point of Fair Isle, between the Orkneys and Shetlands.

Source: PP Abstracts Returns of Wrecks and Casualties on Coasts of the UK 1877 - 78 (1878-79 [C.2314] LXIV.395).

Lerwick, 22nd Sept., 2.55 p.m., the BLACK WATCH, from Bremerhaven to New York, in ballast, has been wrecked at Fair isle: crew and provisions saved.

Source: Shipping Intelligence, LL, No. 19,786, London, Monday September 24 1877.

Lerwick, 1st Oct., all the sails and other materials of the BLACK WATCH, wrecked at Fair isle, have been saved: the hull of the vessel is expected to break up with the first in shore breeze.

Source: Shipping Intelligence, LL, No. 19,796, London, Friday October 5 1877.

NMRS, MS/829/69 (no. 2821).

(Classified as wooden barque, in ballast: date of loss cited as 19 September 1877). Black Watch: this vessel stranded at Shalstane, the western point of Fair Isle. Capt. Newcomb.

Registration: Windsor, N[ova] S[cotia]. Built 1877. 1319 tons [unspecified].

(Location of loss cited as N59 30.97 W1 39.33).

I G Whittaker 1998.

The location cited is taken from the Shetland Maritime Wreck Survey. The information given by Whittaker suggests a location near Fogli Stack or Malcolm Head. Shalstane is not noted as such on the 1998 edition of the OS 1:50,000 map.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 1 May 2003.