Casgliadau Arlein

Starboard broadside view of 2 masted topsail schooner GOELANDS, c.1936.

On 17th September 1935, the schooner GOELAND of Paimpol, set off from Brest to Swansea with a 42-ton cargo of onions. Caught in a strong gale and unable to enter Swansea Bay, she was driven east, her master hoping to make Cardiff. With sails blown away and the cargo shifting attempts were made to beach her at Porthkerry. Her distress was reported by a farmer at Rhoose and the Barry lifeboat was launched. The regular cox was away but Archibald Jones, a retired sea pilot, assembled a crew and took the helm, getting alongside the disabled vessel and saving her crew of six (including a boy of 12 and one of 14) shortly before she was driven onto the rocks at Friar's Point. The lifeboat crew, Henry Hobbs, Hewitt Swarts, Stanley Alexander, Thomas Alexander, William Cook, Henry Housdon and Frederick Searle, were all awarded bronze medals by the RNLI, acting cox Jones receiving a silver medal. The French government also awarded Medailles de Sauvetage to the lifeboat crew as well as Mr Jenkin Lougher the Rhoose farmer. (n.b. - The date given in the Hansen register is given as c.1936 but a picture of the 1935 wreck on the website <> almost certainly identifies that as the same vessel pictured here). Interesting accounts of the event also appears in Tom Clemett's "History of Barry" websites. (PB)