13 years later

Ok, first thing first, im not interested in reading about how bad trawlers or their owners/skippers are, this is not about trawlers!!!!

When i was around 7 or 8 years old, id often be dragged off to my Aunts and Uncles for a visit, they only lived about 20miles away so it would be a quick enough trip, every time we visited tho i would be presented with photo's of my cousin Craig's latest catch (at about the age of 14 Craig worked as a deckhand on a local charter boat, he would eventually move on to skipper the same boat), initially, my reaction would be, ok, so its a tiny shark, should i be excited or what..... Craig, had a habit of catching very good sized Tope, to me tho, they were only a small shark and a bit, well, meh.... As the years went by and the weekly trips went by i started to take notice of the photos i was being shown, eventually it got to the stage where i wanted to be the one holding the fish that was in the picture,

Moving forward 13 years, i was now very much addicted to sea angling (thanks alot Craig), my first beach rod was one which had been passed from Craig himself, a Conoflex Cod5, proper mans rod, aluminium butt section and part of the reason why i do be 'broke' on a fairly regular basis.... Whilst i may not have the photo's of the specimen Tope that Craig had i have had a few fish over they years that would be on a par with the Tope..... Craig at this stage had moved on from the charter boat to be a crewman on a trawler, soon enough he had his skippers ticket and from there he had his own scallop dredger that he ran, eventually, after more tests and exams, he took control of a larger dredger,


The dredger was named the Solway Harvester and on the 11th of January 2000 at around 1746 she slipped beneath the waves and with her she took the lives of my cousin Craig (29), his elder brother Robin (33), their cousin David (18), deckhands Martin (26), John (22), Wesley (17) and David (17),


Im fully aware of the problems associated with the boat and the controversy surrounding the sinking so i dont need to hear about it again, I started this thread to praise the person who inspired me to take up sea angling and id like to think that if he were still alive today he'd be both proud of how accomplished ive become as a sea angler and more importantly mayby a tad jealous of my big catches.....




To Craig and the boys of the solway Harvester

Sad tale,,, RIP to all the crew

Indeed a sad tale, Anyone who works at sea deserves maximum respect in my opinion. Its the harshest of environments and when the sea decides to take you, that's it you have very little chance of escape. RIP to your cousin and the crew of the Solway harvester.

my thoughts are with ur cousin and the crew, respect to the sea men... keep the chin up lad

I know how you're feeling Laurence, I lost my beautiful 10 year old daughter in a freak accident in April the same year. Lives are so fragile and precious, we tend to only open our eyes and ears when we are involved ourselves. Thinking of you at this sad time. May all of our dead friends and loved ones rest in eternal peace.

It was later on that evening that i had first heard something was wrong, i had caught the end of a news story that had been talking about a local trawler that had gone missing off the coast of the Isle of Man, i didnt hear the full name of the boat, only the first part, Solway, i automatically assumed it was the Solway Ranger that had went missing (the Ranger was one of the Harvesters sister boats) because of a 'these types of things never happen to yourself or people you know' type of attitude i had at the time,

It was the following morning upon arriving in work that the story from evening before had fully broke, everything i had thought the night before about it being one of the other boats had just been turned on its head, the boat missing wasnt just any other boat, it was the boat which had 3 of my cousins on board.... Initially, the talk in work was that of being positive, the weather the previous night was pretty rough so the going thought was the EPIRB had been washed of the boat and had started to send out its signal, we had also thought that maybe the boat had got a good beating through the night and had just simply lost any means of communication and she would be found soon enough hidden away in a little bay after taking shelter from the storm. Sadly tho, this was not to be the case, the first of the 2 life rafts from the boat had been recovered from the sea un-opened and soon enough a debris trail was found along with an oil slick, the tension in work now was getting high, still, there were hopes that the crew were in the 2nd life raft and all would be good, once again tho, this was not to be the case, i recieved a call in work from my parents, they informed me that the 2nd life raft had been recovered un-opened and as a result of this the official search had now been called off, some of the private boats which were on the scene assisting in the search stayed on but they were no longer searching for signs of life, they were now searching for the bodies of the crew,

It was a day or 2 later when the wreck was found on the seabed, no bodies had been recovered from the sea so the thought was the crew were all still on board, by this stage both the Scottish Parlament and the UK Parlament had made it clear they would not be making any attempt to either raise the wreck or recover any crew members from the sea due to the sea being a resting place and because of the cost of such an operation, thankfully tho, since the boat was laying in Manx waters it was the Manx Goverment who made the decision to raise the wreck so that any of the crew on board could be brought home to their families, and, so that the wreck could be examined properly to determine why it sank,

It was a number of weeks before they could start to make any attempts to raise the boat, partly because the ship they had charted was on the other side of the globe and the weather would not allow any recovery attempts, there was however a number or survey dives using a ROV done for preliminary examinations and it was during these dives that the first body was found in the fishroom, over the next few days 2 more bodies were found, a 2nd in the fishroom and 1 in the hold, no-one else was found on subsequent dives.

A month on, the recovery ship had arrived on scene, divers had been down to the wreck and removed the 150bags of scallops which were in the hold and also removed any additional equipment that was in the hold, straps were fitted so that the wreck could be lifted to the surface, as the lift started the weather turned on them so the recovery had to be aborted, a few days later the weather had subsided, so once again the lift was attmpted, this time, one of the cranes on the recovery boat got damaged so once more the recovery was aborted, a couple of weeks later, another attempt to lift was put off yet again by the weather, time was running out, the recovery ship had to move off to another area soon as it had been chartered for work elsewhere, so, with the weather still against them it had been decided to raise the wreck off the seabed and tow it, underwater, to a shallower area so that they could raise it there, they moved it a couple of miles but then had to stop and lower it again as it was becoming unstable, the decision was then made to abort all attempts to raise it until spring/ summer, the weather was just too unpredictable and it was too dangerous to continue to try recover it. The divers on the recovery ship tho had all vowed to do all they could to find and recover all the crew members from the wreck, so, for 3 days and nights they dived shifts on the wreck searching for the crew and bringing them to the surface, there were the first 3 members who had been found during the survey dives, they were first off, the next 3 crew were found in the accomodation deck, they had been asleep when the boat sank, the final crew member was very nearly not found, it was only by chance he was found, a diver doing a final search noticed something behind some ladders, it was the final crewman, wedged in behind them,

All 7 crew were recovered and on their way home, Craig was honoured in a joint funeral with his brother and cousin and as a testiment to just how respected Craig was both as a person and as a skipper there were some 5000 people there at his funeral, members of the manx goverment, both the Scottish and Manx RNLI and Coastguard all spoke of him during the funeral, the village from where he lived was full of people, the tiny church was full with people both sitting and standing, the mass was being relayed to the village hall and outside via a soundsystem,

I know how you're feeling Laurence, I lost my beautiful 10 year old daughter in a freak accident in April the same year. Lives are so fragile and precious, we tend to only open our eyes and ears when we are involved ourselves. Thinking of you at this sad time. May all of our dead friends and loved ones rest in eternal peace.

Sorry to hear that Aust, every parents worst nightmare come true

thanks Rory, still hurts so much, don't think I ever get over it

sorry Laurence, had to stop reading your post halfway through with all the tears in my eyes and the memories getting the better of me, anyway, when we wake up of our nightmares there is still a new day to be faced and we have to be grateful for all the loved ones which are still around us alive and that it is our duty to console and take care of them as good as we can. In that sense, try to be strong and help others to be strong too. Wish you all the best my friend and sincere apologies for hijacking your thread.
Martin.

sorry Laurence, had to stop reading your post halfway through with all the tears in my eyes and the memories getting the better of me, anyway, when we wake up of our nightmares there is still a new day to be faced and we have to be grateful for all the loved ones which are still around us alive and that it is our duty to console and take care of them as good as we can. In that sense, try to be strong and help others to be strong too. Wish you all the best my friend and sincere apologies for hijacking your thread.
Martin.

To be honest i didnt intend for this thread to be all doom and gloom, instead it was to remember the person who inspired me to take up sea angling, plus, i made the decision a few years back that it wasnt worth remembering what happened him, instead it was better to think back to the photo's i would be shown all them years ago and remember them instead,

I think its more important to try remember people as who they were and not think about what happened to them, if we invest too much time thinking about the negative we will only drive ourselves into the ground to the point where we may not return..... So, with that, stay positive

so well said, that's exactly what they want us to be. Happy and enjoying our lives within our possibilities and to value every new day. Because we can achieve all what they might wish for us - and this has to be respected and valued. Cheers to that!

Pm sent Lar C u during the week for a session

Being a fellow Scotsman I remember the accident very well. Must have been tough on your family mate. RIP to all the lads.

Being a fellow Scotsman I remember the accident very well. Must have been tough on your family mate. RIP to all the lads.

Joe he is not Scottish but the only Irishman I know with a scottish accent