On 26 March 1997, the 300-ft

merchant vessel A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which a ...

MV Cita pierced its hull when running aground on rocks off the south coast of the

Isles of Scilly The Isles of Scilly ( ; ) are a small archipelago off the southwestern tip of Cornwall, England. One of the islands, St Agnes, Isles of Scilly, St Agnes, is over farther south than the most southerly point of the Great Britain, British mainla ...

in gale-force winds en route from

Southampton Southampton is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. It is located approximately southwest of London, west of Portsmouth, and southeast of Salisbury. Southampton had a population of 253, ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

. The incident happened just after 3 am when the German-owned, Antiguan-registered 3,000 tonne vessel hit Newfoundland Point, St Mary's.

The vessel

Of Antiguan and Barbudan registry, the ''Cita'' had a

gross weight In science and engineering, the weight of an object is a quantity associated with the gravitational force exerted on the object by other objects in its environment, although there is some variation and debate as to the exact definition. Some st ...

of 3,083 tonnes, , and capacity of . Built as a dry cargo vessel in 1976, she was owned and operated by Reederei Gerd A Gorke, Germany and had been converted to a feeder container ship.

The wreck

The mainly Polish crew of the stricken vessel were rescued a few hours after the incident by St Mary's Lifeboat, with the support of a

Westland Sea King The Westland WS-61 Sea King is a British licence-built version of the American Sikorsky S-61 helicopter of the same name, built by Westland Helicopters. The aircraft differs considerably from the American version, with Rolls-Royce Gnome eng ...

rescue

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

from

RNAS Culdrose Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose (RNAS Culdrose, also known as HMS ''Seahawk''; International Civil Aviation Organization airport code, ICAO: EGDR) is a Royal Navy Military airbase, airbase located beside the town of Helston, situated on the L ...

. They sailed to the UK mainland on board the '' Scillonian III'' later that afternoon. Many containers were washed up on the rocks and beaches of the Isles of Scilly, and many were found in the

Celtic Sea The Celtic Sea is the area of the Atlantic Ocean off the southern coast of Ireland bounded to the north by St George's Channel, Saint George's Channel; other limits include the Bristol Channel, the English Channel, and the Bay of Biscay, as wel ...

, travelling as far as

Cornwall Cornwall (; or ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is also one of the Celtic nations and the homeland of the Cornish people. The county is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, ...

. Locals were thankful that the wreck was mostly cargo, so the risk of pollution was much less than it could have been, such as in the aftermath of the ''Torrey Canyon'' oil spill. The specialist salvage vessel '' Salvage Chief'' removed 90 tonnes (98%) of fuel from the ''Cita'' before she sank, leaving only a minor

oil slick An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...

. Oiled sand on Porth Hellick beach, part of the Isles of Scilly SSSI, was removed by excavation. Three tugs were summoned to collect the containers drifting around the Celtic Sea. The wreck stayed above the surface for several days before sliding off the ledge into the deeper water further from the coast.

Salvage and looting

The ''Citas cargo consisted of 200 containers, twenty of which remained on board. Items such as computer mice, car tyres, tobacco, house doors, plywood, plastic bags, and women's summer shorts were among the contents of containers wrecked around St Mary's. Most locals assisted in the clean-up operation, removing the items from the coastline. Quinnsworth bags, bound for Ireland, were used in shops for months following the wreck of the vessel. A couple of months later, St Mary's Quay had several containers moored alongside by local fisherman, waiting for them to be sold back to the shipping companies or for scrap. People removing items from the shoreline for their own use could have been faced with prosecution, according to police at the time. Eight extra police were brought over to Scilly from mainland Cornwall to assist, taking notes of who was removing goods. Customs officers said that, under the Merchant Acts of 1894 and

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

, people are obliged to report recovered flotsam to the Receiver of Wreck. There is no known case of police taking up criminal proceedings for the removal of the flotsam.

Report

According to David Martin-Clark, the reason for the wreck of the ship was "the watch-keeping officer had fallen asleep and the watch alarm had been switched off."

Notes

External links

Wrecks
- 11 April 1997 {{DEFAULTSORT:Cita Shipwrecks of the Isles of Scilly Cornish shipwrecks Merchant ships of Germany Maritime incidents in 1997 1977 ships Ships sunk with no fatalities