The King Cadwallon (Wreck)

 shipwreck, interesting place

FOG WAS, IS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, the curse of sailors around the Isles of Scilly. It has a nasty habit of coming down suddenly there, lifting as suddenly, then fast clamping down again, writes Kendall McDonald.
Many of the wrecks around these islands owe their underwater existence to fog. King Cadwallon is a prime example. She was a 3275-ton steamer of Glasgow's King Line, 325ft long with a beam of 49ft and a draught of 22ft. Six years old in 1906, the vessel had twin boilers and a three-cylinder triple-expansion engine that gave her 278hp.
With Captain George Mowat on the bridge and 27 crew busy aboard, at 8am on 21 July, 1906, she steamed out of Barry Docks for Naples. In her holds she carried 5043 tons of Welsh coal.
Despite a southerly breeze, the King Cadwallon made her way down the Bristol Channel in a thickening haze. Off Lundy the fog lifted, giving the captain just time to fix his position before it clamped down thicker than before.
From then on, the captain and crew saw nothing but fog. When they thought they were near the Scilly Isles, they started taking soundings every few minutes. All casts of the lead signalled that they were in very deep water.
In the darkness at 5am on 22 July, the lead told them that they were over 27 fathoms. Three minutes later the King struck the highest point
of Hard Lewis, one of the reefs of the Eastern Rocks of the Scilly Isles. Hard Lewis, parts of which thrust up from a 50m seabed, has seen at least six wreckings.
King Cadwallon's engine was stopped immediately - just as the fog disappeared. Within 10 minutes the forehold was full of coal-black water. As the vessel began listing to starboard, the Captain and crew took to the boats with their belongings, and floated on the calm sea until help arrived.
Shortly afterwards the King Cadwallon slipped back off the rocks and sank, more or less upright, into deep water.