Calamity Corner: The Wrecks of the Eastern English Channel

This recent volume by Anthony Lane effectively compiles some three centuries of loss from a range of causes in one of the world’s most crowded and treacherous seaways.

For those vessels not deliberately destroyed by acts of war, the numerous sandbanks in the Thames Estaury and the eastern English Channel provide ample opportunity for running aground, while the busy shipping channels, crisscrossed by ferry routes and often draped in fog, further contribute to the carnage with their infinite potential for causing collisions.

The author has arranged the many casualties covered into categories, beginning with warships, then mercantile victims of war, followed by collisions, groundings and fires.

A final section pays tribute to the many brave rescuers who have responded to incidents of all types.

Orientated primarily towards well researched photo captions, the volume proceeds from ancient illustrations such as one showing an anchored brig being deliberately destroyed by a prototype torpedo only days before the Battle of Trafalgar, through to very recent images of the car carrier Tricolor, which sank in the shipping channel following a collision just before Christmas of 2002 with £30m worth of luxury vehicles onboard. A fascinating follow-up photo shows a cargo ship sitting high and dry atop the casualty after initial wreck notification proved ineffective for other shipping.

Social dimensions are not ignored, such as when the fully laden American Liberty Ship Helena Modjeska grounded on Goodwin Sands in 1946, providing a bonanza of food and clothing for the local population during a time of harsh rationing.

Calamity Corner is an engrossing and evocative book which pays poignant and respectful tribute to the losses chronicled.

Calamity Corner: The Wrecks of the Eastern English Channel
By Anthony Lane.
Published by Tempus Publishing Limited
ISBN 0 7524 3163 3.
Paperback, 160 pages (Over 200 illustrations)
Price £12.99