Friday 4 October 2013

Wreck of the Pallas, 1910


Cayman Islands Maritime Heritage Trail 
In 2003, the Cayman Islands National Museum teamed up with the Department of Environment, National Archive, and National Trust, to develop and launch the Maritime Heritage Trail. Spanning all three Caymanian islands, the trail is the first maritime trail of its kind in the Caribbean and combines education, heritage and recreational tourism. A three part approach aims to protect, manage, and interpret the Cayman Islands’ national heritage.

Made up of thirty six archaeological maritime sites across Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, the Maritime Heritage Trail is a land based driving tour that takes heritage buffs to important maritime locales including lighthouses, shipwrecks and historic anchorages, to name a few.

In 2003, the Cayman Islands National Museum teamed up with the Department of Environment, National Archive, and National Trust, to develop and launch the Maritime Heritage Trail. Spanning all three Caymanian islands, the trail is the first maritime trail of its kind in the Caribbean and combines education, heritage and recreational tourism. A three part approach aims to protect, manage, and interpret the Cayman Islands’ national heritage.
Made up of thirty six archaeological maritime sites across Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, the Maritime Heritage Trail is a land based driving tour that takes heritage buffs to important maritime locales including lighthouses, shipwrecks and historic anchorages, to name a few.
- See more at: http://www.museum.ky/sites#sthash.KvPB52m4.dpuf

SV PALLAS 

a three-masted iron sailing ship, was built in 1875 by Charles Connell & Co., Glasgow, (information and picture)

On October 13th, 1910, the Norwegian barque SV PALLAS, owned at the time of her loss by Malm A/S, Oslo, was on a voyage from Buenos Aires to Gulfport in ballast, when she sailed into a hurricane. The ship was out of control, her Captain lost and she finally ran aground on the 'Pull and Be Dammed Point', southwest from Grand Cayman Island.

Wreck of the Pallas on South Sound reef  

off Pull-and-be-damned Point, Oct.12, 1910
SV Pallas was an iron sailing ship with 3 masts, built in 1875.




The 1910 Cuba hurricane popularly known as the Cyclone of the Five Days, was an unusual and destructive tropical cyclone that struck Cuba and the United States in October 1910. It formed in the southern Caribbean on October 9 and strengthened as it moved northwestward, becoming a hurricane on October 12.

1910 October: George Stephenson Shirt Hirst (1871-1912), Cayman Islands Commissioner from 1907 to 1912, wrote Notes on the History of the Cayman Islands, published in 1910. 

Commissioner Hirst’s eyewitness account is in his book: 


On the 12th. and 13th. of October, the Dependency was again visited by a hurricane. For a few days before there were ominous warnings and preparations were made with a view to preventing as much damage as possible. The Schooner “Express” owned by James Webster of Georgetown was in harbour and rode through the storm without injury. At 9pm a Norwegian barque, the “Pallas”, was driven on the reef at South Sound and became a total wreck. The captain and crew were saved the next morning.

In this storm the wind (which blew from 80-85 miles an hour) did much less damage than the sea. Captain David Fuertado, who has known Georgetown for over 80 years, informed me that it was the heaviest sea he recollected, far surpassing the sea in the 1845 strom. The road in front of the Court House, parts of Church Street and New Road in Georgetown were washed away and tons of rocks, sponges, seafans, fish and other refuse were deposited by the storm on “the front”.

At West Bay, the roof of the school building was carried away and the pier totally demolished. The materials forming the pier were fortunately washed ashore.

At Red Bay and Spotts the roads were washed away and at the latter place the sea encroached 53 yards on the land, bringing up an abundance of rocks and boulders which it deposited in the form of a breakwater. In fact, the breakwater saved the houses of the Messrs. Crighton.

At Savannah the sea came over the land and washed away parts of Hirst Road. At Newlands, a school of dead Jack was found and a King Fish caught in a gully, a third of a mile from the sea.

At Bodden Town the pier was damaged but little else.

East End appears to have suffered more than any other place, where Mr. Conwell Watler estimates the sea rose  fifteen feet.



During the storm the wind blew first from the South East and then from the South West.

Barque    
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.