SS ''Mahratta'' was a steamship owned by Brocklebank Line which was launched in 1891 and ran aground on the

Goodwin Sands Goodwin Sands is a sandbank at the southern end of the North Sea lying off the Deal, Kent, Deal coast in Kent, England. The area consists of a layer of approximately depth of fine sand resting on an Chalk, Upper Chalk platform belonging to ...

in 1909.

History

SS ''Mahratta'' was launched on 19 November 1891. Its name is an old spelling of

Maratha The Marathi people (; Marathi: , ''Marāṭhī lōk'') or Marathis (Marathi: मराठी, ''Marāṭhī'') are an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group who are native to Maharashtra in western India. They natively speak Marathi, an Indo-A ...

. In 1900 she served as a troopship in connection with the

Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic an ...

Shipwreck

On 9 April 1909 (Good Friday), the 5,639 ton liner ''Mahratta'' stuck in the Goodwin Sands, with a heavy cargo, a crew of 90 and 17 passengers. The ''Mahratta'' was homeward bound to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

from

Calcutta Kolkata, also known as Calcutta (List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, its official name until 2001), is the capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal. It lies on the eastern ba ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

with a mixed cargo including

jute Jute ( ) is a long, rough, shiny bast fibre that can be Spinning (textiles), spun into coarse, strong threads. It is produced from flowering plants in the genus ''Corchorus'', of the mallow family Malvaceae. The primary source of the fiber is ...

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

rubber Rubber, also called India rubber, latex, Amazonian rubber, ''caucho'', or ''caoutchouc'', as initially produced, consists of polymers of the organic compound isoprene, with minor impurities of other organic compounds. Types of polyisoprene ...

and

tea Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of south-western China and nor ...

. She ran aground on the Fawk Spit of the

in calm weather and stuck fast. The next day, lifeboats were launched and the majority of the passengers were rescued by the

Deal In cryptography, DEAL (Data Encryption Algorithm with Larger blocks) is a symmetric block cipher derived from the Data Encryption Standard (DES). Its design was presented by Lars Knudsen at the SAC conference in 1997, and submitted as a proposa ...

lifeboat. Although two tugs were sent from

Dover Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...

, it was impossible to pull ''Mahratta'' free. ''Mahratta'' broke in two the day after this. The three passengers aboard at the time included one female passenger who had refused to leave as she had a

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

with her which would have to go into quarantine if rescued. The Sands did not break the ''Mahratta'''s back for 24 hours, allowing time for locals to help unload its cargo. Many of them demanded their right of salvage, and when customs officers searched their houses they were physically roughed up. The westerly wind increased in strength, and as cargo was salvaged from No.4 and 5 holds the ship listed making further salvage more difficult. A

Board of Trade The Board of Trade is a British government body concerned with commerce and industry, currently within the Department for Business and Trade. Its full title is The Lords of the Committee of the Privy Council appointed for the consideration of ...

inquiry found that the ship had run aground because the pilot had failed to recognise the Gull Light and then took an incorrect course. A second ship named ''Mahratta'' ran aground on the Goodwin Sands in 1939, less than a mile away from the site of the wreck of the first ''Mahratta''.

''Pride of Canterbury'' ferry incident

On 31 January 2008, the roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry '' Pride of Canterbury'' operated by

P&O Ferries P&O Ferries is a British shipping company that operates ferry, ferries from Scotland to Northern Ireland, and from England to Continental Europe (France, Belgium and the Netherlands). The company was created in 2002 through mergers and acquisi ...

struck the wreck of ''Mahratta'' while manoeuvering in severe weather into a holding position in The Downs. The ferry suffered extensive damage to her port propeller and had to be assisted to berth in Dover. It is not clear whether the wreck site named in the MAIB report is that of the first ''SS Mahratta'' or the later vessel.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahratta (1892) Shipwrecks in the Downs Schooners Maritime incidents in 1909 Merchant ships of the United Kingdom 1891 ships Ships built in Belfast Ships built by Harland and Wolff