Maritime record 13695 - MOUNT ROYAL: VATERSAY BAY, VATERSAY, ATLANTIC

NL69NW 8002 c. 63 95
N56 55 W7 32

Possibly on map sheet NL69SW.

NLO: Bagh Siar [name centred NL 624 953]
Bagh Bhatarsaigh [name centred NL 648 953]
Vatersay/Bhatarsaigh [name centred NL 62 96].

18 December 1875, MOUNT ROYAL, 19 yrs old, of Liverpool, wooden ship, 1,228 tons, 26 crew, Master J.A. Scobie, Owner Craig & Steel, Glasgow, departed Greenock for Sandy Hook, carrying coal, wind SW6, stranded Vatersay Bay, Western Hebrides.
Source: PP Abstracts Returns of Wrecks and Casualties on Coasts of the UK 1875 - 76 (1876 [C.1632] LXVII.191).

MOUNT ROYAL, Official No. 33,589, built Thomastown, US, 1856. Equipment was deffective. The stranding was not attributed to any default of the Master, officers, or crew. The Nautical Assessors did not agree with the Justices with respect to the seaworthiness of the vessel, as they were of opinion that she was unseaworthy in hull as well as in equipment on leaving Greenock. Inquiry held at Greenock.
Table 46: Statement of Official Inquiries in the United Kingdom into the Causes of Wrecks, Casualties, and Collisions, ordered by the Board of Trade during the Year 1875-6.
Source: PP Abstracts Returns of Wrecks and Casualties on Coasts of the UK 1875 - 76 (1876 [C.1632] LXVII.191).

Glasgow, 31st Dec., the owners of the MOUNT ROYAL, from the Clyde to United States, have a telegram from the master advising the vessel being ashore 19th inst., at Vatersay island, West Highlands, and likely to become a total wreck.
Source: Shipping Intelligence, LL, No. 19,248, London, Saturday January 1 1876.

Glasgow, 31st Dec., the ship MOUNT ROYAL, of and from Glasgow, for Sandy Hook, with coal, has been wrecked on the island of Bana: captain and crew saved: the vessel was returning to the Clyde, leaky, when the wreck took place.
Source: Shipping Intelligence, LL, No. 19,248, London, Saturday January 1 1876.

Vatersay, 20th Dec., if the weather moderate the materials may be saved from [Record received incomplete].

NMRS, MS/829/69 (no. 2602).

(Classified as wooden vessel of unstated rig: no cargo specified but date of loss cited as 18 December 1875). This vessel was wrecked in Vatersay Bay.
I G Whittaker 1998.

Vatersay Bay is not noted as such on the 1997 edition of the OS 1:50,000 map. It is possibly to be equated with either Bagh Siar or Bagh Bhatarsaigh, on the W and E sides of the island respectively.
Information from RCAHMS (RJCM), 13 April 2004.

REPORT DATE: 13/04/2004