The Last Voyage of the Tridonia - Patrick Russell
The Last Voyage of the Tridonia
A storm, a brave rescue, and the tragedy off Oxwich Point, October 1916
A Storm Over the Channel
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| Barque |
Among the ships caught in the storm was the steel barque Tridonia — a tall, four-masted sailing ship built in 1901 and bound from Dublin to Buenos Aires in ballast, heading to load a new cargo for South America.
Seeking shelter, her captain dropped anchor off Rhossili
Bay, hoping to ride out the gale until the seas calmed. But the storm only
grew stronger. By nightfall, the Tridonia was labouring heavily at her
moorings as sheets of rain and spray swept across her decks.
Anchor Lost — and Doom Approaches
Just before midnight on 30 October, tragedy struck.
With the wind howling from the southwest, one of the Tridonia’s heavy
anchor cables snapped under strain, and the ship began to drag
helplessly toward Oxwich Point. The cliffs loomed invisible in the
darkness; the crew fired distress flares, which were spotted from the shore.
Messages raced to the Mumbles Lifeboat Station, and within the hour, the
lifeboat Charlie Medland launched into the storm.
The lifeboat crew battled monstrous seas but was forced
back. Onshore, rocket-brigade teams from Oxwich and Rhossili gathered on
the cliffs, hauling their line-firing apparatus into the gale. Time and again,
they tried to shoot a line to the doomed vessel, but the wind scattered the
rockets before they could reach her.
A Night of Terror
On board, Captain Thomas Retallick struggled to keep
control. The Tridonia, now broadside to the waves, was being pounded
against the rocks. Realising that escape by boat was impossible, he ordered his
men to lash themselves to the rigging. Amid the chaos, four crewmen
managed to launch a small boat and were hurled ashore, half-dead from
exhaustion and cold.
For the rest of the crew, the night was an eternity of fear.
The ship’s masts groaned and rigging screamed as each wave struck. Those
clinging high above the decks could see only darkness and spray, the roar of
the sea drowning every cry.
Rescue at First Light
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| Patrick Russell St. Illtyd's Church, Oxwich credit - findagrave |
This time, a line caught on the wreck, and one by one the survivors were hauled to safety through the foaming surf. Among those saved were the captain’s wife and a local pilot, who had joined the vessel earlier in her voyage.
When the rescue was over, three men were missing —
washed away or trapped below when the ship broke apart. Their bodies were later
recovered along the coast. One of them, Patrick Russell, was buried in St
Illtyd’s churchyard at Oxwich, where a headstone still bears his name and
the date of the disaster.
Patrick Russell: The Lost Sailor of Oxwich
Very little is known about Patrick Russell, but his
name endures in stone. His headstone in the quiet churchyard of St Illtyd’s,
overlooking Oxwich Bay, records that he “was drowned in the wreck of the barque
Tridonia near Oxwich on the 30th day of October 1916.”
Maritime records suggest that Russell was from Dublin, and it is likely
that he was one of the ship’s able seamen for the voyage to Buenos
Aires.
He is the only crewman from the Tridonia known by
name today. The identities of the other two sailors who perished have been lost
to time, though they too rest somewhere along the Welsh coast. Russell’s grave,
weathered but legible, stands as a simple and poignant memorial to all three.
Recognition of the Rescue
The tragedy of the Tridonia also revealed remarkable
courage. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution, in its official
journal of 1 February 1917, recorded a special award to seven local
men “for saving four of the crew of the barque Tridonia, totally
wrecked in Oxwich Bay on the 30th of October 1916.”
The entry confirmed that four crewmen survived, while three were lost,
corroborating the early newspaper accounts.
These brave rescuers — members of the Oxwich and Rhossili
rocket brigades — fought wind, rain, and darkness to bring the survivors to
land. Their actions earned the gratitude of the lifeboat service and of the
coastal communities they served.
What the Newspapers Reported
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| Cambria Daily Leader |
It described the ship “driven ashore in the night’s terrific gale,” noting that twelve men were “lashed to the rigging” and that “it is feared two of the crew have died from exposure.” The report praised the bravery of the lifeboatmen and coastguards who battled to reach the wreck.
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| Cambria Daily Leader |
Together, these reports captured the Tridonia’s final
hours and her fate with the spare precision of wartime journalism — tragedy
first, then the business of salvage.
The End of the Tridonia
By the following week, the once-proud barque lay broken
and stranded on Oxwich Point. Her owners soon gave up hope of refloating
her. Over time, her remains disappeared beneath shifting sands. Occasionally,
after a severe storm, fragments of her steel hull re-emerge — ghostly
relics of that night.
The Tridonia’s wreck brought to an end fifteen years
of service that had seen her sail across the world’s oceans. She was one of the
last of the great commercial sailing ships to operate in the western seas
before steam and war changed maritime trade forever.
Legacy of a Wreck
Today, more than a century later, the story of the Tridonia
remains part of Gower’s maritime folklore. Walkers along Oxwich Bay
still tell of the ship that came ashore in the Great War winter, her crew
clinging to the rigging while rescuers battled the storm below.
The sands may shift, and the sea may claim the last of her
timbers, but the memory of the Tridonia endures — a tale of steel and
sail, storm and survival, and the enduring courage of those who face the
sea.
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