Paolo: Gunnet Ledge, Firth Of Forth

NT28NE 8016 c. 267 818

N56 1.4 W3 10.6

NLO: Inchkeith [name: NT 297 827].

See also NT28SE 8013.

Location formerly entered as NT 2723 8176 [N56 1.4 W3 10] and NT c. 272 817 [N56 1.4 W3 10.1].

About 9 o'clock on Thursday morning, the steamer Paolo, outward bound from Burntisland with a cargo of coal, sank at the Dunnet Rock [Gunnet Ledge], Inchkeith. The ship left Burntisland on Saturday, and when about the May Rock, the ship was badly damaged and the lifeboat carried away. The captain decided to put back. It appears there were a number of ships lying around the West buoy, and the captain, mistaking the East one for it, sailed right between the two, and struck on the reef. The accident was witnessed by the pilot boat Mary Thomas of Newhaven, which went immediately to the rescue. The last man had just reached the Mary Thomas when the steamer lurched back and sank in 3 fathoms of water.

The steamer was 650 tons burthen and is understood to belong to West Hartlepool. She carried a crew of 18 men, some of whom succeeded in saving their belongings.

Source: Fife Free Press, 22 October 1898.

19 October 1898 PAOLO, 16 years, of W. Hartlepool, Lloyds + 100 A1, survey 9.97, iron steamship, 647 ton, 18 men, Master J.W. Howling, Owner J.W. Crosby and J. Magee, W. Hartlepool. Burntisland to Hamburg. Coal. Wind E9. Gunnet Rock, Firth of Forth. Casualties involving total loss of vessel during year end 30 June 1899.

Source: PP Abstracts of Shipping Casualties on Coasts, or in Rivers and Harbours, of UK July 1898-99 (1900 [Cd. 318] LXXVII.531).

NMRS, MS/829/67 (no. 715).

(Name cited as Paola and classified as iron steamship, with cargo of coal: date of loss cited as 19 October 1898). This vessel struck Gunnet Rock and became a total loss.

I G Whittaker 1998.

Neither the Gunnet [Gannet] Rock nor the Ledge of the same name is noted as such on the 1999 edition of the OS 1:50,000 map.

The current edition of the chart notes Gunnet Ledge centred around N56 1.43 W3 10.55, about 2.8km WSW of Inchkeith. This distinct feature rises from Middle Bank to a charted depth of 1.9m and is buoyed to E and W; the nature of the seabed is not indicated locally.

Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 11 September 2003.

HO chart no. 734 (1993, amended 1995).