The Witte Zee (Wreck)

 shipwreck, interesting place, invisible

She was a famous ocean-going tug with a famous salvage firm, but the Witte Zee was lost at the very beginning of a standard refloating operation on 23 February, 1964.

On that day the 7300 ton freighter Brother George ran ashore on the Brook Ledges, which cover two miles of the Isle of Wight's south-west coastline. The Ledges have been a ships' graveyard from the earliest times, but there seemed no reason to think that the Brother George, on her way from Manchester to her home port of Rotterdam, would not come off easily if pulled by a big tug.
Several raced to her aid, but the huge power of the tubby 132ft Witte Zee belonging to NVL Smit & Co of Rotterdam got her there first and she got the contract.

Captain Klein eased in through the shallow water - the Witte Zee drew only 4m - to get close to the stranded freighter but, just as his crew were about to fire a hawser-heaving line across by rocket, a particularly big wave hit the tug's stern and she rolled heavily.

She came back up sluggishly and Klein realised that she had been badly holed in the bow by one of the unseen rocks of the Ledges.

Other tugs were still nearby and the Abeille 10 and the Gatcombe took the flooding tug in tow and headed for the Solent. But it was clear that she was sinking and the Yarmouth lifeboat Earl and Countess Howe took the last of the tug's crew off as the seas started washing over her deck. Two hours later, the Witte Zee foundered.

The Brother George was pulled free by other tugs not long afterwards, but was so badly damaged that, after being towed to Rotterdam, she was sold for scrap..