By Ian Cooper, from his excellent series Records of a Bygone Age, first published in The Stronsay Limpet and republished here with kind permission.
On 17 March 1969, Orkney faced one of the darkest days in its long maritime history. While responding to a rescue call, the Longhope Lifeboat TGB capsized in ferocious seas, and all eight crewmen were lost.
As related below, when contact was lost with the Longhope Lifeboat, the Stronsay Lifeboat and crew answered the call to help in the search for her.
After a long spell of south-easterly gales, the Liberian cargo ship Irene found
herself in difficulties in the Pentland Firth and sent out a Mayday. This call was answered by the Longhope Lifeboat and crew who set off to try to render assistance. With sea conditions about as bad as it was possible to get, the Longhope boat encountered some mountainous seas and, after sending a message at 2130 that evening, no more was heard from her.
As time passed concern for the TGB grew and the Hon. Secretary of Stronsay Lifeboat Station Captain Ted Clements was contacted and, in consultation with the coxswain Jimmy Stout, it was agreed to deploy the Stronsay lifeboat, the John Gellatly Hyndman, to help in the search for the missing lifeboat at first light. With the maroons fired to summon the crew at 6.30 on the morning of the 18th, crew members Archie Reid, Mike Richards, Sydney Swanney, Allie Norquoy, Peter Rendall and John Harcus joined coxswain Jimmy Stout to offer what help they could.
Coxswain Jimmy Stout’s son Jimmy Stout junior was one of those down the
pier that morning offering to come as crew but his father told him he thought he should maybe just stay home this time. Jimmy admitted in his own understated way some time afterwards that he thought that one person from a household was enough for this call. With his knowledge of the sea, he had his doubts for the safety of man and ship on this voyage but, as he stated, “If you were needed, how could you not go?”
Leaving the harbour they travelled west about Stronsay, then turned south down the Stronsay Firth. On coming to Copinsay and the east side of Orkney they encountered some horrendous sea conditions, the worst any of the crew had ever encountered. Climbing what was estimated to be 60 feet waves, balancing precariously on the crest for a few seconds and then plunging down into the trough at the other side, few of the crew were confident of ever seeing their loved ones again. When a message then came through that the Longhope lifeboat had been found bottom up and taken in tow by the Thurso lifeboat, the John Gellatly Hyndman wasn’t very far away and the crew witnessed the tragic sight of the upturned boat under tow, a vision that was to live with them all forever.
With the prevailing sea conditions still extremely challenging, Jimmy Stout
took the decision to continue on right around Orkney rather than again encounter the huge seas prevailing on the east side of Orkney. The trip through the Westray Firth and through the Fall of Warness was still very uncomfortable but the lifeboat reached her home port safely and, after refuelling, was back at her moorings at 2110 after 14 hours of battling some truly horrific sea conditions.
Jimmy spoke very little of this trip but an interview with him recorded in 1986 and now held in the Orkney Archives certainly brings a lump to the throat and a tear to the eye, particularly to those who knew Jimmy personally and realised how he would downplay his own role in anything he did. I think it’s worth noting a little of it here:
Jimmy firstly recalled in the interview that he had been listening on the radio
that night and realised that the Longhope boat had been called out but went to bed with no thought of what was to come.
Then, in the early hours of the morning, Jimmy was wakened by a phone call from Captain Clements who reported that contact with the Longhope lifeboat had been lost and that the Stronsay lifeboat had been asked to join the search for the missing boat. They agreed that the crew should be called out and they should set off just before first light so that by the time they lost the relative shelter of Stronsay they would at least be able to see the seas ahead of them.
It had been south east wind for days, with some terrible seas running and Jimmy said in the interview,
“I never expected to come home, to tell you the honest truth….. I didn’t think we would come home. We were at Rothiesholm Head as the light was coming in and it wouldn’t have been safe to go through that in the dark.”
Jimmy then asked the interviewer,
“ Are you frightened on the sea?”
to which she replied “Definitely”
“Well you definitely would have been frightened that day!” he replied. The interviewer then asked “ Were you frightened that day?” to which Jimmy replied “I was…… the only time I’ve ever really been frightened.” …. “ I had a smashing crew and we got through it and lived to tell the tale.”
“The lifeboat authorities said there were 60 ft waves and I wondered if that could be true but when I figured it out myself they were definitely that size”… “All my crew are still here.”
“I didn’t take Jim (his son) with me – I said ‘Jim you had better no come this
time’….. just to tell you, I didn’t expect to come home.”
The interviewer asked “So you were frightened?” to which Jimmy replied
“Oh, definitely.”
Then “Were the crew frightened? Was there any sign that they were frightened?” to which Jimmy replied
“No….. no – I think I was the only one that was frightened!”
Jimmy then went on to say
“Oh she was a smashing sea boat! I would just love to have seen a film of some of that when we were off Copinsay. There was one wave that broke over us off the Horse of Copinsay and there was absolutely nothing above water – we were totally under – it just broke entirely over the top of us…….. but we’re still here!”
“ I wouldn’t like to have been in that in the dark – I don’t know what would have happened – possibly the same as happened the Longhope boat but it was daylight and we could see and we got through it, but I was frightened to come back home through it and we decided to come home the other side of Orkney.”
The first plan was to go to Stromness and wait for conditions to improve but, Jimmy said,
“We had plenty of time and we were in the shelter so we just plodded away home.”
Jimmy Stout and the crew of the Lifeboat who had been out that night later
received a letter of commendation and appreciation from the RNLI for their help in searching for the missing Longhope boat as shown below.
“GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN THAN THIS,
THAT HE LAY DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FELLOW MEN”
Very soon after the tragedy, and with the community still trying to come to
terms with what had happened, the widows and families of those who had perished voiced their determination that the Station at Longhope should remain and the lifeboat service continue. Members of the community were quick to volunteer as crew of a new lifeboat and, within a year, a new lifeboat and crew were ready to continue the service offered by the Station since its formation in 1874.
This tragedy affected the lives of so many in Longhope, in Orkney and beyond and it is a tribute to the memory of those who lost their lives that fateful night that those others who answered the call to try to help are still remembered there. In the words of John Budge, former Longhope Lifeboat mechanic and Operations Manager,
“We in Longhope remember how the Stronsay men came down to search for our overdue boat without hesitation and had to go all the way round Orkney to return, such was the weather that morning to the east of Orkney. Thank you for your bravery. You are not forgotten here.”
On 17th March, 2019 the community of Longhope came together with representatives from Orkney and further afield to mark the 50th anniversary of the disaster. Archie Reid, one of only two surviving member of the Stronsay crew of 50 years previously, was proud to be able to represent Stronsay Lifeboat Station and attend the commemoration and memorial service in Longhope that day.