Reunion more than 40 years after Duncansby rescue drama
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ISLAND MEMORIES: John Manson, whose family was the last to leave Stroma in 1962, recalls his role in assisting a grounded Faroese fishing boat – and how he met up with one of the rescued crewmen many years later
We were the only family living on Stroma at the time. It was February 9, 1961, and as it was winter we didn’t do much fishing. We rose about 7am and as my mother let our two collie dogs out she came back into the house and said: “There are lights very close to the shore at Duncansby Head.”
Thinking somebody may be in distress or in need of assistance, we left without breakfast. It was a crisp, frosty morning with little or no wind; the sea was calm, with only a hint of swell on the shore. We headed out from the Haven where we kept our boat Girl Elsie (WK 160) and caught the flood tide going east.
It soon became obvious the Elsa (FD 9), a Faroese fishing vessel, was stranded on the west side of the Ness of Duncansby. The fishery cruiser Norna arrived on the scene about the same time as ourselves. We went alongside the Norna and, as we spoke with them, we saw the crew from the Elsa boarding their small lifeboat which was banging quite hard into the side of the big boat. When my father saw this he manoeuvred our boat alongside. We threw a line over to them which they soon made fast and we towed them into deeper water and away from danger.
We gave them a hand to come on board, and although they were young fishermen on the rocks there was no panic. My mother heard all the traffic on our shortwave radio distress band and she heard the wireless operator on Norna say: “The Girl Elsie has rescued the crew of the Elsa – it’s a bit confusing the two boats having similar names.”
We threw a line over to them which they soon made fast and we towed them into deeper water and away from danger.
The Wick lifeboat, with Neil Stewart in command, arrived as we left the scene to land the four crewmen we had rescued at John O’Groats and we had our breakfast in the hotel with them. Commander Woolcombe, inspector of HM Coastguard at the time, came in to thank us for the sterling job (as he called it) we had done. We had our photo taken with the four crew, shook hands and left to go back to the casualty as the four told us the skipper and engineer were still aboard. When we went back the lifeboat had rescued them. The skipper was Jogan Olesen and the engineer was Pauli Petersen. If anybody has a photo of them being landed at Wick the family would appreciate it, as Pauli Petersen has since died.
We left to go home and get on with our daily chores.
About a year later we left Stroma to live in Scrabster and in the late 1980s I started work in the new ice plant. I iced the fleets of boats from various nationalities, including some Faroese vessels that were landing their catches in Scrabster. I began to wonder if any of these fishermen would know about the Elsa. One day the Faroese fishing liner Grani was landing her catch. I asked the crew if they knew about the Elsa and her crew that we had given assistance to. When I showed them the photos of the Elsa’s crew, the skipper said he knew about the Elsa and some of the crew were from his own village but I should speak to the fishing liner Jogvan Nordi (FD 9 – same fishing number as Elsa) which was also landing fish regularly in Scrabster.
Next time she arrived I showed her skipper the photos. He said: “Our engineer, Hakun Jacobsen, is one of the men in the photo but he has a trip off.”
About a fortnight passed and the Jogvan Nordi arrived back in Scrabster. Hakun Jacobsen had been a teenager like myself at the time of the grounding. He came to the ice plant, put his arm around me and shook my hand and thanked me for our help after 40-odd years.
The Jogvan Nordi was built to replace the Elsa and was launched a year to the day from the grounding at the Ness of Duncansby. Sadly, she filled with water and sank a few years ago.
- WICK VOICES: You can hear John Manson talking about this incident and other memories of being at sea on the Wick Society website.
