# Trawler tragedy near Aberdeen



## sjdeez

My father told me 3 of his uncles were lost at sea in Trawler tragedy off the coast of Aberdeen.
How can I find info on this.
He says it was in 1953 and those lost were

George Hill
James young
Gordon Young

Sorry not much to go on but any help would be appreciated.
Cheers
susan


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## cueball44

sjdeez said:


> My father told me 3 of his uncles were lost at sea in Trawler tragedy off the coast of Aberdeen.
> How can I find info on this.
> He says it was in 1953 and those lost were
> 
> George Hill
> James young
> Gordon Young
> 
> Sorry not much to go on but any help would be appreciated.
> Cheers
> susan


You need to go to 'HULL TRAWLER TALES' or just type in trawler tragedies,If you know the ships name you can type in the name of the ship and then add wreck report,But you should come across it if you go on the trawler sites,there is a lot HULL,FLEETWOOD,ABERDEEN,GRIMSBY.'cueball44'


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## sjdeez

thanks for the quick reply, I don 't know the ship but I'll see what I can find


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## clevewyn

1953 was a bad year, the big storm 31 Jan/1st Feb took more than 100 fisherman around the east coast if I remember right.


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## cueball44

sjdeez said:


> My father told me 3 of his uncles were lost at sea in Trawler tragedy off the coast of Aberdeen.
> How can I find info on this.
> He says it was in 1953 and those lost were
> 
> George Hill
> James young
> Gordon Young
> 
> Sorry not much to go on but any help would be appreciated.
> Cheers
> susan


Is this the one, S.T. MICHAEL GRIFFIN FD249, Lost with all hands off BARRA HEAD, also M.V. HILDINA H222 Capsized off Northen Isle 5 Men missing 1953.'cueball44'.


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## clevewyn

Barra Head is on the other side of Scotland Cueball.


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## cueball44

clevewyn said:


> Barra Head is on the other side of Scotland Cueball.


Well the site i went to listed about 6 vessels that came to greif in 1953, And the two i have mentioned had losses, I don't know if they meant 'off Aberdeen or round Scotland's coast,Just trying to help.'cueball44'


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## clevewyn

No criticism intended mate just that there were a number of trawlers lost in the Aberdeen area both at sea and grounded around that time, and if the information is right (big if) then that one could be eliminated.

As you said in your earlier post the "Home Port" would be of great help.


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## cueball44

clevewyn said:


> No criticism intended mate just that there were a number of trawlers lost in the Aberdeen area both at sea and grounded around that time, and if the information is right (big if) then that one could be eliminated.
> 
> As you said in your earlier post the "Home Port" would be of great help.


Yes you are right, I am from HULL and we had a lot of losses as you know, I go on all the trawling sites but its a bit of a maze, As some of them only list certain ships,It took me a while to find the wreck report on my uncles trawler that was run down by a merchant ship in the North Sea in 1936.'cueball44'.


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## clevewyn

In an ideal world you would have the ship name, company name and port as a starting point and that`s only for the main fishing fleets.

Back then there were boats going out from long forgotten places on a regular basis.


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## cueball44

sjdeez said:


> My father told me 3 of his uncles were lost at sea in Trawler tragedy off the coast of Aberdeen.
> How can I find info on this.
> He says it was in 1953 and those lost were
> 
> George Hill
> James young
> Gordon Young
> 
> Sorry not much to go on but any help would be appreciated.
> Cheers
> susan


This fishing vessel ' HASSET' is the nearest i can find that lost five men in 1953,the site i found it on is one that you have to subscribe to, anyway is it possible for you to tell me which port the ship sailed from.'cueball44'


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## john fraser

From the book"The Real Price of Fish" Aberdeen Steam Trawler Losses 1887-1961 the following trawlers were lost in 1953,the "Sunlight" in January53 and "River Lossie" inMarch 53.In both cases all crew were saved.


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## cueball44

john fraser said:


> From the book"The Real Price of Fish" Aberdeen Steam Trawler Losses 1887-1961 the following trawlers were lost in 1953,the "Sunlight" in January53 and "River Lossie" inMarch 53.In both cases all crew were saved.


I don't think the ship was from aberdeen,The person who is trying find some information just says it happend off the coast of aberdeen,But there is no clue to how far north or south it is.(Read)'cueball44'.


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## Hugh MacLean

cueball44 said:


> This fishing vessel ' HASSET' is the nearest i can find that lost five men in 1953,the site i found it on is one that you have to subscribe to, anyway is it possible for you to tell me which port the ship sailed from.'cueball44'


You can probably rule out "HASSETT" the names listed are not among the five lost at sea.

Regards


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## cueball44

Hugh MacLean said:


> You can probably rule out "HASSETT" the names listed are not among the five lost at sea.
> 
> Regards


If she had said where her father was from in scotland,we would have a clue which fishing port the ship was from!(Ouch),'cueball44'.


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## Roger Griffiths

I think we can say with some certainty, that the men who were lost were not onboard a vessel registered in Aberdeen or Hull.
Logic suggests that a GY vessel would be a contender.
If our original poster is still interested, I suggest she post on the GY board and maybe our friends there might be able to shed some light.

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=6320

Roger


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## cueball44

Roger Griffiths said:


> I think we can say with some certainty, that the men who were lost were not onboard a vessel registered in Aberdeen or Hull.
> Logic suggests that a GY vessel would be a contender.
> If our original poster is still interested, I suggest she post on the GY board and maybe our friends there might be able to shed some light.
> 
> http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=6320
> 
> Roger


There is one i have had marked down for a few days,A grimsby trawler named>'Leicester City' That sank in 1953,'cueball44'.


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## davetodd

cueball, try the website below and search Leicester City.
Regards
Dave

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/grimsby.trawlers/lostl.htm


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## Roger Griffiths

cueball44 said:


> There is one i have had marked down for a few days,A grimsby trawler named>'Leicester City' That sank in 1953,'cueball44'.


LEICESTER CITY was lost off Hoy.
However this may be the vessel we are looking for.
THe men lost were 
E *YOUNG* 
G *HILL*
W WESTERMAN 
A ROBINSON 
R HUNT 
K NEVIN
N DIMOPOULOS
You will note that men called *Young* and *Hill* were lost.
Could it be that the original poster has been given erroneous information concerning names and position of loss, given that the events happened nearly 50 years ago?


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## JIMMY HAMILTON

if you search Orkney Archives, there is a lot of information about the Leicester city, including names of crew lost and stories of the rescue attempts...


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## JIMMY HAMILTON

A contributer by the name of John Budge, on Orkney Archives has a lot of information on Leicester City, hope this helps.. cheers


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## cueball44

Roger Griffiths said:


> LEICESTER CITY was lost off Hoy.
> However this may be the vessel we are looking for.
> THe men lost were
> E *YOUNG*
> G *HILL*
> W WESTERMAN
> A ROBINSON
> R HUNT
> K NEVIN
> N DIMOPOULOS
> You will note that men called *Young* and *Hill* were lost.
> Could it be that the original poster has been given erroneous information concerning names and position of loss, given that the events happened nearly 50 years ago?


Thats right, two names tally,But you can't always go by the christian names because they may have been known by the middle name if they had one,They did it with my brother, In the paper they put 'Ernest' but he was known as 'Stanley',There is a page on the Grimsby one which gives hundreds of names and the ships they died or were lost on, But i can't get back to it for some reason,I will keep trying then i can see if the names tally,'cueball44'.


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## northernstar

*lost trawler*

i think the ship you are talking about is the LEICESTER CITY the names you put were on it as was my uncle charlie hunt who sadly lost his life'


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