Maritime record 14097 - WILLIAM SORLIE: EOLIGARRY SANDS, BARRA, ATLANTIC

NF70NW 8005 c. 70 07
N57 2 W7 26

NLO: Eolaigearradh [name: NF 702 077].

27th January 1859, WILLIAM SORLIE, 19 yrs old, brig, 233 tons, 12 crew, carrying general cargo, stranded, total loss, 1 life lost, wind SE by E 10, Eoligary Sands, Barra.
Source: PP Abstracts Returns of Wrecks and Casualties on Coasts of the UK 1859 (1860 [2623] LX.501).

Greenock, 12th Feb.. The WILLIAM SORLIE (brig), McKenzie, of and from Glasgow for Paramaribo and Surinam, with a general cargo, was driven ashore on a sandy beach at Borne Barra (Hebrides) 26th Jan., she does not appear as yet to have sustained damage, and should the weather keep moderate the greater part of the cargo will be saved, but if it should blow strong, the vessel is likely to become a total wreck.
Source: The Marine List, LL, No. 13,998, London, Monday February 14 1859.

Greenock, 19th Feb.. A letter from Stornoway received 17th Feb., states that there are four vessels ashore on the Island of Barra, besides the WILLIAM SORLIE. About 800 bags of rice have been landed from that vessel, some of it partly in a damaged state, also some of the materials of the vessel, which fills with the tide. The VIRAGO, (Liverpool trader), while on her passage to the [record received incomplete].

NMRS, MS/829/68 (no. 2022).

(Classified as brig, with general cargo: date of loss cited as 26 January 1859). This vessel stranded on a sandy bay at Borve, Barra.
I G Whittaker 1998.

Possibly on map sheet NF60NE. Eoligarry Sands are not noted as such on the 2001 edition of the OS 1:50,000 map, and is unclear whether the loss occurred on the eastern or western side of the island.
Whittaker suggests a location 'on sandy bay at Borve' [Borgh: NF 655 013].
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 18 April 2002.
I G Whittaker 1998.

REPORT DATE: 28/01/2004