South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands - Commemorative

NEW ISSUE - Release Date - 25 June 2010

Wrecks & Hulks

There are over sixty wrecks and hulks around South Georgia, most of them scuttled and sunk, some still visible. Except for a submarine and two modern fishing vessels nearly all took part in the sealing and whaling industries.

The South Georgia wrecks and hulks fell victim to uncharted waters, unpredictable weather and - at the end - to the decline of the whales. Catching one’s eye in the vicinity of the former whaling stations some appear now to be taking a long winter’s rest. To best portray this solemn sleep, all images were taken in winter at full moon.

 

Forty nautical miles [74 km] to the South East, in protected Ocean Harbour, that extraordinary epoch of sail can still be sensed in the present posture of Bayard (60p). On 6 June, 1911 she was moored at the coaling pier at the north side of the bay when a severe gale caused her to drift across the harbour on to rocks. Today a near complete cover of tussac grass and a colony of blue-eyed shags occupy her decayed decks, which once - in an earlier life - used to regularly carry Indian labour to the South Seas or the West Indies.

The much smaller Karrakatta (95p), Petrel (£1.15), Albatros and Dias (70p) carry a less worldly air. The first three were whale catchers, two later sealing vessels – in the case of Dias solely as a sealer - they stood at the core of South Georgian modern whaling and sealing industry. The catchers carried the gunners to the grounds to find and harpoon the whales. They towed the carcasses to the whaling stations.

Karrakatta escaped this fate. She had early found an ingenious calling as a coal-fired boiler. Just beyond a small headland, that separates Husvik’s whaling station from its two slipways, she had been hauled out of the water on slipway number one.   From there her steam boiler would power the adjacent engineering workshop that maintained the fleet on slipway number two. A square entrance cut into her iron hull allowed access to her boiler room and a lagged pipe – still visible - carried steam to the nearby buildings.

Of all vessels associated with South Georgia’s whaling or sealing Dias, Albatros and Petrel were the last to remain in service. They are among Grytviken’s major maritime remnants in what used to be a busy harbour. While working as sealers it was usually one of these that lent logistic support to scientific programmes as well as establishing Bird Island’s scientific station. Sometimes they maintained the link to the Argentine meteorological station on the South Orkney Islands. Living conditions aboard were said to be the roughest imaginable, with continuously wet bunks and virtually no ablution/washing facilities for weeks on end. To their last days they were skippered by Norwegians such as Captain Ole Hauge, who had an unrivalled knowledge of South Georgia’s vicious, uncharted waters. For decades the skills of men like him assured their return to Grytviken. After whaling finished the abandoned vessels became over laden with snow and sank at their moorings during a particularly severe winter.