The Verona (Wreck)

 ship wreck, interesting place, draw only border

The luxury steam yacht Tighnamara was a fine example of what Scottish shipbuilders could do when backed by copious quantities of Victorian money. She was launched into the Clyde at Greenock in 1890, and when completed was an elegant, 165 ft-long, twin-masted schooner shape with her single funnel amidships.

Most of her fittings were solid brass, and even her toilets were highly decorated with blue flowers in the loo and curling blue foliage running riot around the china wash-basins, a sure sign in those days that she was the plaything of a seriously rich man.

She was also a good sea boat, and ideal for cruising among the Western Isles. So it's hard to understand why none of her owners kept her for more than a few years. Each one changed her name, so she became successively Katoomba, then Lord Byron, then Imogen. Another change of owner meant that when the Admiralty hired her for war work in November of 1914, she kept her latest name.

HM Yacht Verona was soon ordered to round Scotland and take up anti-submarine patrol duties off the east coast from a base in the Moray Firth. There she was suitably equipped to attack any U-boat she might meet, with small guns on her counter-stern and two more at the bow, near her long bowsprit. Later she was modified to take a single depth-charge, which was simply rolled over her stern.

She was never to use the guns or her depth-charge against any of the big mine-laying UC-class boats which were sinking large numbers of Allied ships in small minefields laid off the Scottish coast.

Verona hit a German mine in the early morning of 24 February, 1917, when patrolling some four miles south-east of Tarbat Ness. She sank in less than a minute.