It feels a bit Baltic out there - 1861

Following on from yesterday's writing on the pioneering manufacture of Steam powered ships and their influence on the emergence of the Port of Hull as a major trading portal I thought it only right to expand on the great hazards associated with shipping in the hostile environments, in particular of the North Sea and Baltic Waters. 

There was a regular movement of ships from Hull to the Northern European Ports carrying all manner of freight and goods, Livestock and for much of the 19th Century a good proportion of the 2.2 million migrants heading to the New World came along this east to west corridor. 

In 1861, taken as a snapshot of a typical 12 month period of maritime trade there was a series of tragedies of shipwreck, foundering and disappearance with resultant loss of crew, passengers and cargo.

One that prompted a column of its own in the London Times in that year was the steamship, Baltic, under the command of a Captain Buchanan. 

The vessel was on a sailing from Hull to Kronstadt which lies some 20 miles west of St Petersburg, the great Russian Capital. Its Manifest mentioned a cargo of machinery and cotton from the United Kingdom bound for Russia and with a likely return of those seeking a new life in Canada or the United States of America. It was in the ownership of Messrs T Wilson and Son who, as The Wilson Line and later the Ellerman Wilson Line were at one time the largest merchant fleet in the world. 

The transporting of Migrants was a large part of the business income stream in those years. 

SS Baltic didn't make it beyond the island of Hiumaa close to the Gulf of Finland becoming grounded and wrecked. 

The cause of the accident was speculated upon as being a magnetic aberration affecting the ship's compass as was a common occurrence in those waters close to Veckmans Ground. I have not been able to trace such a place on archived navigation maps and it may have been just a nickname for a specific reef, shoal or outcrop that was known to mariners. 

In the narrow sound between Denmark and Sweden farther West there is a geological feature of not dissimilar name- Vengeancegrund although given the separation between the actual location of the wreck of SS Baltic and the Danish Strait any further association is unlikely. 

The new fangled steam ships, predominantly of iron construction will have been susceptible to such magnetic influences to a greater extent than their predecessor wooden hulled sail ships. 

SS Baltic was a relatively new ship having been built and launched by the respected Earles Yard in Hull in 1858 as an example of iron screw propulsion. 

Captain Buchanan may simply have misread a malfunctioning compass and driven his ship onto the shoreline. Fortunately his 21 crew and two or three passengers were saved. 

Wilson and Co had a bad record of shipping losses in the months of late 1860 to the time of the June 1861 SS Baltic wrecking on their Northern European routes. The roster included Arctic, the Kingston and the Bothnia. In each of these events there was tragic loss of life and in the case of Bothnia no trace was found after a last sighting near Helsingor, Denmark. 

You will be familiar with the name, from my recent writing, of the Hull Merchant and Ship Owner Zachariah C Pearson and his highly publicised multi-million pound Bankruptcy. He too suffered a maritime loss in these inhospitable waters, perhaps caused by the same magnetic disturbances to the compass, with the Steamer Wesley of which again no trace was found. 

As a footnote the London Times reported that the owners of the SS Baltic were insured.