Yachting Monthly - November 2015

HERITAGE

30 http://www.yachtingmonthly.com NOVEMBER 2015

Grace Darling’s daring rescue in the Farnes made her a Victorian celebrity. Behind the myth

lies a less dramatic, though no less seamanlike truth, says local sailor Alastair Buchan

B

orn 200 years ago this
November, Grace Darling
won fame saving survivors
from the wreck of the
SS Forfarshire. Her story
starts at 1800 on Wednesday 5
September 1838 when Captain John
Humble took Forfarshire out of Hull
on a scheduled voyage to Dundee.
Forfarshire, a brigantine-rigged
paddle steamship, was an accident
in waiting. By 0400 Thursday
morning either her ‘starboard
boiler had all leaked out and they
were obliged to put two fi res out,’
or, as the engineer later claimed, ‘a
small leak appeared and continued
for about six hours, but not to any
extent’. He had often seen it as bad
and ‘the pumps kept the vessel quite
dry,’ according to the inquiry report.
The engineer’s repairs, if any, did
not last but as they went through the
Farne Islands at 1800 the Forfarshire’s
speed dropped from near eight knots to
six and then to three. Around 2200 as they
passed Berwick the wind began blowing
with ‘great violence from the north east.’
Three hours later, at 0100 Friday, off St

Abbs the tide turned south and the engines

stopped forever. Humble tried and failed

to put the ship on the offshore tack and

run downwind ‘with a view to keeping her

off the land’. Instead he ‘kept her head as

much as possible to the eastward and they

rolled and drifted like a log to the

south’. The weather was ‘a perfect

hurricane, the rain sweeping down

in torrents and the sea running

mountains high and foaming and

roaring around them’.

Around 0300 the Longstone

light was seen. Without waiting for

orders the mate, second mate, the

engineer, fi ve crew members and a

half-naked passenger abandoned

ship in one of the two quarter

boats. They were picked up by a

Montrose sloop and arrived in

North Shields that evening. With

later attention focussed on Grace

the mate successfully justifi ed his

actions by claiming that ‘when they

left the vessel no passenger with the

exception of Mr Ruthven Ritchie

wished to come off ... and that

another boat equally good was left’.

Some say that Captain Humble

intended to anchor behind Inner Farne.

This meant steering for the Inner Sound

and when the lighthouse came abeam

slip into the anchorage. According to

this theory Humble somehow mistook

Longstone light for Inner Farne light and

The legend and truth

of Grace Darling

Originally called the Outer Farne Light, this

was part of a failed scheme by Sir John

Clayton in 1696 to build four lighthouses along

the Northumberland coast. In 1755 another

proposal for a light on Longstone came to

nothing. The present light was designed by

Joseph Nelson. Construction began in 1825.

The tower is 26 metres high and the light

fl ashes white once every 20 seconds. There

were fi ve levels to the lantern, including three

fl oors of bedrooms. The Darlings moved to

Longstone in January 1826.

Longstone Lighthouse

ALL PHOTOS: ALAMY

The Harcar rocks,
with the Longstone
lighthouse behind,
are low-lying and
can be treacherous,
like the rest of the
Farne Islands

Grace is often depicted

as the sole rescuer and

her father as a weak,

indecisive man