SANDAY, SCOTLAND—Last year, when winter storms revealed a previously-unknown shipwreck on a beach on Sanday Island, one of the Orkney Islands, it launched an investigation by archaeologists and historians to uncover the mysterious vessel’s identity. The Herald Scotland reports that researchers from Wessex Archaeology, Dendrochronicle, Historic Environment Scotland, and other local institutions recently tracked down the ship’s origins, believing the wreck to be that of the Earl of Chatham, a 500-ton whaling ship that sank in March 1788. Before it was known by that name, however, it was formerly the HMS Hind, a ship with many years of service in the British Royal Navy. The 24-gun frigate Hind participated in major conflicts in North America, including the French and Indian War in the 1750s and the American Revolutionary War in the 1770s, before being decommissioned and sold. As the Earl of Chatham, the ship completed four successful whaling seasons in the Arctic before running aground in the Bay of Lopness, an area known as the “cradle of shipwrecks” in Scotland. It was carrying a crew of 56 at the time it went down, all of whom survived. “Throughout this project, we have learned so much about the wreck, but also about the community in Sanday in the 1780s,” said Wessex Archaeology’s Ben Saunders. “Sanday was infamous for shipwrecks at the time, but the community was equally well-known for its hospitality as it looked after sailors who fell afoul of the area’s stormy seas.” To read about a ship that began as a Scottish luxury steam yacht in the late nineteenth century, go to "From Yacht to Trawler to Wreck."
