The Cita (Wreck)

 interesting place, invisible

All that was needed to bring back the old days of wrecking on the Scilly Isles were lights on the shore enticing the Cita in to her doom. But the lights werent there. Nor were any wreckers,

The First Mate, the only man supposedly on watch on the bridge, was asleep. The automatic radar alarm was switched off, and the big container motor vessel Cita drove herself at full speed through the early morning fog onto the rocks of Newfoundland Point, St Marys.

It was exactly 3.30am on 26 March 1997 when she struck, and the inrush of sea after the crunch gave her an immediate list of 30¡. The containers, stacked three high on her deck and below, snapped their fastenings and tumbled into the sea as the list increased to near capsize point.
The St Marys lifeboat was out at 3.35am and took off seven crew. The captain was lifted off the wreck by helicopter as she listed to 70¡.

Cita was not a new ship, nor was it her first name. She had been built as the John Wulff in Germany in 1977. In 1983 she became Lagarfoss, and only in the year before her wrecking was she renamed Cita, a bulk-carrier container ship of 3083 tons.

On 25 March she left Southampton bound for Belfast, laden with 145 containers of general cargo including French wine, bales of tobacco, childrens clothing for Marks & Spencer, car engines and batteries, cast-ironwork, china soap dishes, toothbrush-holders, mugs and beakers, and hundreds of different household items.

Word of the cargo spread swiftly around the islands, and within minutes Scillonians and visiting tourists were helping themselves to as much as they could carry away. It was like a scene from centuries past. Customs and other officials were reportedly "overwhelmed and could only hand out wreck and salvage report forms and hope people would complete and return them".

The Cita survived intact for 12 days before breaking in two. Her bow section stayed shallow. Her stern, together with her engines, accommodation and the bridge, sank deep. Meanwhile those containers that fell free of the ship were broken open by being smashed against the rocks, and her cargo covered rocks and beaches for miles around.

Just how much she was carrying can be judged by the fact that every gale for the next five years brought new cargo spills washed up along the beaches near the wreck site. Sunken containers still provide divers with other wreck sites over a wide area.

The fact that the First Mate was asleep at the time of the wrecking was part of an enquiry by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch into nine similar accidents - all of which occurred on board ships operating a watch system that involved the Master and Chief Officer taking turns to do six-hour watches