FLORENCE GY1201
HUNGATE GY1201
Official No: 113207 Port Number and Year: 80th in Grimsby, 1900 (GY1201)
Description: Steel side trawler; steam screw; coal burner.
Crew: 9 men (1900). (8 or 10 men according to two newspapers below.)
Built: 1900; Selby Shipbuilding Co., Selby. (Yard no. 44)
Tonnage: 204 gross 60 net
Length / breadth / depth (feet): 155 / 21.5 / 11
Engine: 76 hp.
Owners:
As FLORENCE GY1201
29 Oct 1900: The Central Steam Fishing Co., Grimsby.
Manager: Tom Appleton, "Donnybrook", Hessle, nr. Hull.
Aug 1904: Phoenix Trawling Co. (G. H. D. Birt), Docks, Milford.
9 Sep 1904: As HUNGATE GY1201
Landed at Milford: As FLORENCE: 1 Jul 1903 - 5 Sep 1904; as HUNGATE: 13 Sep - 6 Oct 1904
Skippers: Wallace Watson; Dove; Joseph Huddleston; Thomas Rowlands
Notes: 7 Oct 1904: Foundered 25 miles SW by S of St. Ann's Head, in wind conditions NNW force 4. [See below.]
29 Oct 1904: Register closed.
Accidents and Incidents:
From The Scotsman of Thursday 11th October 1904, p.8:
SHIPPING CASUALTIES AND NOTES
..............
TRAWLER FOUNDERED
The crew of the Milford trawler Hungate, formerly known as Florence, were landed at Swansea on Saturday evening. They numbered eight, including Captain Thomas Rowlands. During a storm on Friday off St. Anne's [sic] Head, the trawler sprung a leak and foundered. The crew took to a small boat, and ten hours later were picked up by a Tyne vessel. They returned to Milford by rail on Saturday night.
From The Pembrokeshire Herald and General Advertiser of Friday 14th October 1904:
Fishing Trawler Sunk.
MILFORD CREW'S NIGHT IN AN OPEN BOAT.
EXPERIENCES OF GREAT DISCOMFORT
The captain and nine men forming the crew of the Milford trawler Hungate (which used to be called the Florence) were landed in Swansea on Saturday afternoon by the steamer Tyne. The men stated that whilst fishing off Lundy in the morning their trawler encountered heavy seas and sprung a leak, and they had to take to the boat. The trawler subsequently foundered. They were very much cramped for room, the boat being small, and some of them had to lie in her bottom, and suffered a good deal from the wet. They ran before the wind up channel, hut were subsequently sighted by the steamer Tyne, and taken aboard, after experiencing some hours of discomfort and danger.
The ten survivors of the Hungate were in a rather exhausted state when they arrived at Swansea. On the ship being berthed in the Prince of Wales Dock Mercantile Marine Officer Frood took charge of them, and took them to the Sailors' Home, where they were well treated by Captain Winter, the superintendent, and good meals prepared for them. In the meantime a message was despatched to Mr. E. Taff, Superintendent of the Mercantile Marine, Swansea, who is local secretary to the Shipwrecked Mariners' Society, and arrangements were at once made to send them back the same evening to their homes at Milford and neighbourhood.
They stated in the course of interviews that the Hungate, which is a steam trawler belonging to Grimsby, left Milford about four o'clock on Friday afternoon to proceed to a distant fishing ground in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Biscay. They had scarcely got to sea before a serious leak was discovered. It was impossible to investigate it or to stem the rush ot water, and in about three hours and a half after leaving Milford, and less than two hours after they discovered the leak, the vessel foundered. Before this the boat was launched, and the captain and some of the crew stayed aboard till the last. They were drifting about the channel for the whole night, and at 7.30 in the morning were picked up by the Tyne, as stated. They suffered great discomfort in the crowded boat, and were wet and stiff when rescued. They were also, as it appeared, in a very dangerous position on a lee shore on the Pembrokeshire coast, and would almost certainly have had their boats mashed up.
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From B.T. & R. Larn (2000): Shipwreck Index of the British Isles, Vol 5
HUNGATE 07/10/1904
Bristol Channel [sic], Saint Ann's Head, offshore, 25M SW 52.34N 06.12W
...............
Foundered and lost offshore in wind conditions NNW force 4. ...
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