The ''Athina B'' was a merchant ship. On 21 January 1980 she suffered engine failure in bad weather and beached at the English

seaside resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

, to the east of the town's Palace Pier. The ship was a temporary

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, with the Volk's Electric Railway opening out of season to serve the large number of sightseers.Pastfinders
/ref> The

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ', which itself comes from the Greek (). Anch ...

of the ship is on display on Brighton seafront.My Brighton and Hove
Anchor A restaurant in Brighton bears the name of the shipThe Argus
/ref> and a painting of ''Athena B'' by Dennis Roxby Bott is in Brighton Museum.Virtual Art Museum
Note incorrect spelling of name.

Career

Built as the ''Kojima Maru'' at Hiroshima in 1968, she initially sailed under the Japanese flag. She was renamed ''Hung Wei'' in 1973 and ''Nina Pa'' in 1976, before being sold and renamed the ''Athina B'' in 1979, sailing under the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

flag.Miramar Ship Index – ''MS Athina B''
/ref>

Final voyage

The ''Athina B'' left the

Azores The Azores ( , , ; , ), officially the Autonomous Region of the Azores (), is one of the two autonomous regions of Portugal (along with Madeira). It is an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atl ...

on 11 December 1979 laden with 3,000 tonnes of

pumice Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of extremely vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicula ...

. Her destination was the port at

Shoreham-by-Sea Shoreham-by-Sea (often shortened to Shoreham) is a coastal town and port in the Adur District, Adur district, in the county of West Sussex, England. In 2011 it had a population of 20,547. The town is bordered to its north by the South Downs, to ...

, West Sussex. During the voyage, she had problems with her generator,

gyro compass A gyrocompass is a type of non-magnetic compass which is based on a fast-spinning disc and the rotation of the Earth (or another planetary body if used elsewhere in the universe) to find geographical direction automatically. A gyrocompass make ...

and

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

, and put in at

La Rochelle La Rochelle (, , ; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''La Rochéle'') is a city on the west coast of France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime Departments of France, department. Wi ...

in France for repairs. On arrival at Shoreham on 20 January, force seven or eight winds meant she was unable to enter harbour. Her engines failed, and a

Mayday Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice-procedure radio communications. It is used to signal a life-threatening emergency primarily by aviators and mariners, but in some countries local organiz ...

call was issued. The Shoreham lifeboat ''Dorothy and Philip Constance'' took off half the crew and the captain's family, with the rest being rescued on the morning of 21 January. Four missions were needed to rescue all those on board. The ship drifted eastwards and eventually ran aground to the east of the Palace Pier. The ship broke her back and was declared a write-off.My Brighton and Hove
Athina B articleMy Brighton and Hove
The rescue
website

Awards

Coxwain Ken Voice was awarded a RNLI Silver Medal; Crew members Ken Everard, Michael Fox, Peter Huxtable, John Landale, Jack Silverson and Geoff Tugwell were awarded the RNLI's Thanks of the Institution on Vellum; Crew members Peter Everard and Derek Silverson received letters of thanks signed by the director of the RNLI for their part in the rescue of the crew of the ''Athina B''.

Salvage

The ship remained on the beach for a month, guarded by the police to prevent looting. After a mobile crane was used to remove the cargo, she was refloated and towed to a scrapyard at Rainham, Kent on 21 February 1980, where she was scrapped.My Brighton and Hove
Guarding the wreck

References

External links