The Robert Limbrick

The Robert Limbrick was built in 1941 in Aberdeen. Although she had a trawler design, she was built by the Royal Navy and immediately commissioned as the minesweeper HMS Sir Galahad (pictured left). After the war, she was bought by an Aberdeen company, renamed Star of Freedom, and registered as A283. In 1956 she was acquired by Milford Fisheries Ltd of Milford Haven, and renamed Robert Limbrick.

The Star of Freedom

On 5th February 1957, around five in the morning, while fishing off the north coast of Mull in winds of up to 100 miles an hour, the ship ran aground. At 05.14 the trawler Westcar reported that the Robert Limbrick had hit the Sgarmor Rocks on the west side of Ardmore Bay, and that the crew had taken to the boats.

Photo of the Robert Limbrick aground at Quinish Point

Although attended by two trawlers and the Mallaig lifeboat, in appalling conditions, no-one was picked up from the water, and the wreck subsequently drifted until she came ashore at Quinish Point. There were no survivors and, over the following days, the bodies of all twelve members of the crew were washed up along the beaches. No salvage was attempted, and the ship later broke up.

There is little memory of the incident here in Kilchoan. One man remembers the events of that night, and says the the wreck of the Robert Limbrick is still visible at low spring tide off Quinish Point. Another recalls seeing two bodies laid out on the Tobermory waterfront.

However, there is some evidence that lobbying by local people, including residents of Kilchoan, resulted in the Ardmore Light being built. Lorna Hunter and engineers at the Northern Lighthouse Board have tracked down a 'proposal drawing' for a light dated 1958, suggesting that there was no light before then, and that the NLB was responding to the tragedy. The light they built was a gas light, with a hut to store the gas and the light on a pole. It was replaced with the present electric light in 2003.

Details of the tragedy are on the excellent "Milford Trawlers" website here

Top picture courtesy of the Imperial War Museum, middle is from the collection of Jim Porter on the "Milford Trawlers" website, with thanks, and bottom is from The Herald.

Many thanks to Lorna Hunter and the NLB for information.