True Blue - a general history

Launched as True Blue: Official No. 60922; Code Letters JKBD.

Owners: Richard Berridge, London: 1870 William Russell, London:  1873 Michael Spartelli (Old Bond Street) London.

Masters: 1869-70 Dunn: 1872-74 EJ Hall: 1874-75 Robert McAvoy (b.1844 London).

Bound from Cardiff for Malta with a cargo of 807 tons of coal, 147 tons of bunker coal & a crew of 20 the Margaret foundered in a NW force 8 gale in the Bay of Biscay on 29 November 1877. The only survivor of the crew, John McCarthy, was picked up in a boat by the Spanish steamer Rivera on 2 December. He stated that the Margaret was proceeding in a gale when she was struck by an exceptionally heavy sea which threw her on her broadside & washed most of the crew overboard. One boat was washed into the sea with nine occupants but it capsized. The men managed to right it & clamber inside but one by one they died except for McCarthy. On 1 December a German steamer picked up a lifeboat marked Margaretof London. The boat was full of water & contained the body of a man & four oars.

The owner’s manager stated that he did not believe that the vessel could have behaved as described unless a quantity of water had found its way into the cargo; but assuming this to have been the case he stated that the only lesson he derived from the loss of the vessel was the necessity for making water-ballast cocks & pipes so simple that mistakes would be impossible, the Margaret’s having been quite the reverse of this. He was further of the opinion that owners should be allowed more freedom in the mode of constructing & fitting their ships, & that the law of insurance should be so regulated as to make it the interest of owners to run their vessels safely & for long periods. 19 lives were lost.

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