On the 15 October 1917, the S.V. Zebrina set sail from Falmouth with a cargo of Swansea coal aboard. Her destination, Saint-Brieuc in France. It had been a rocky start to the trip. A previous attempt three days earlier had ended in failure, with bad weather forcing the ship to return to port, but eventually, in spite of the pessimistic weather reports, the ship had no other option but to set sail. The crew must have breathed a sigh of relief to be on their way at last. As they said their final goodbyes, it could never have occurred to those who watched them leave that these men would disappear, evaporate like mist over the water, never to be seen or heard of again.
The S.V. Zebrina
The Zebrina, a 189 ton, three-masted sailing barge had been built in Whitstable in 1873[1] for the company, H & H Gann[2]. Its flat-bottomed design perfect for navigating the rivers of South America. It was a strong schooner, more than capable of transporting cement or meat from large deep-water sailing ships to the shallow water wharves, but after seven years of service she was retired from the route. The schooner passed through a number of hands before being commissioned by the Mercantile Navy.
During World War I, the main role of the Zebrina was to ferry coal over to France, fulfilling an essential function. The Zebrina had successfully undertaken many such similar missions before that fateful day in October.
What happened to the Zebrina and her crew is an unsolved mystery which has resulted in her joining a small and exclusive group. This group includes most famously the Mary Celeste as well as the M.V. Joyita and the S.V. Carroll A Deering. These sea vessels are often given the romantic name of ghost ships.
A Ghost Ship Discovered
Two days after the S.V. Zebrina left Falmouth, she was found by the French Coastguard undamaged but aground off of the rocky French coast in six feet of water, ‘it was remarkable that although she was deep laden, drawing between nine and ten feet of water, she escaped material injury and was not even leaking‘[3]. On boarding, the men were bewildered to discover the galley fire still burning [4], the table laid for a meal that would never be served, and not a soul onboard. After a search of her was made, her cargo was removed and she was towed to Cherbourg.
A report on her discovery and subsequent fate, held by the Whitehall Archives, simply stated that the “Zebrina [was]…found ashore abandoned at Rozel Point, near Dielette France, October, 1917. Refloated. Settled due to war risk. Crew of five lost”[5].
The Crew
Most of the five-man crew of the S.V. Zebrina were seasoned sailors. Their names can be found on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website[6]. The crew included: –
- Master J. Archibald Martin, aged 33
- George Steward (Mate), aged 69 from Brightlingsea
- Able Seaman W.H. Beck, aged 26
- Able Seaman William Ferdinand Douglas Bourke, aged 17, from London
- Able Seaman Martin Faus, aged 31, originally from Riga, Russia (now Latvia)
A memorial plaque can be found to them in Trinity Square Gardens in London.
What went through their minds during the moments leading up to their disappearance? Were they afraid? Did they panic? Or did they meet their fate with calmness and resignation?
The Mystery of the Zebrina
Over the years, a number of theories have put forward to explain the crew’s disappearance with most focusing on two central themes; bad weather and enemy capture.
Bad Weather
As was mentioned before, the 30-hour journey was delayed for two days due to bad weather, with weather reports at the time recording an “almost unbroken record of gales”[7]with heavy squalls and rough seas making any sea journey perilous. In stark contrast, when the ship was found on the 17 October, the sea was remarkably calm, adding to the eeriness of her discovery. Apart from a slight disarrangement of the rigging, the ship was intact. So, as the men were not lost due to a shipwreck, what could have possessed them to abandon her?
If we accept that bad weather was the cause then either the men were swept overboard during a storm or they panicked, believing falsely that the ship was in imminent danger of capsizing and jumped over the side, hoping by some miracle to swim to safety or be picked up and rescued. Logically, the only viable option is the first one as it seems doubtful that most of the men, who were experienced sailors and in particular the captain would leave the schooner and her precious cargo whilst she was still afloat or believe that they could survive in such dangerous waters. The hole in this theory being that, if the men had fallen overboard in a violent storm, surely the ship would have shown more signs of damage and disorder than she did.
Enemy Attack
Other theories pivot around the idea that the crew of the S.V. Zebrina were victims of an enemy attack. For example, the men jumping off the schooner to avoid capture after sighting a German submarine surfacing; the enemy submarine or vessel boarding the S.V. Zebrina and killing the crew; the enemy submarine having been spotted causing the crew to gather on the deck where they were then swept overboard due to rough seas and a storm; and the men being taken onboard a submarine that was subsequently torpedoed and sunk, with all lives lost.
On the surface all these theories are plausible but less so when examined more closely. For instance, the idea that the men purposely threw themselves in the sea, preferring to drown instead of the safer albeit unpleasant option of spending the rest of the conflict as POWs seems highly improbable. The other idea that the men were killed in cold blood is also unconvincing. Such an action would go against German protocol on how to deal with an enemy capture. It could be supposed that the British crew put up a fight but again this seems unlikely, why being unnumbered would they risk certain death. The two remaining scenarios seem by a process of elimination the most probable.
Official records show intensive enemy submarine activity during October 1917. The day that the S.V. Zebrina sailed, a German submarine had sunk the S.S. Hartburn (near Swanage), the S.S. Garthclyde had been attacked off the coast of Penzance and the S.S. Hoode (a Norwegian vessel) had been torpedoed off of the Ile de Batz. The following day, the St Paul and St Helena were sunk in the Bay of Biscay[8]. This evidence supports the very real possibility that the S.V. Zebrina was herself, a victim of enemy action but does raise the question of why if the waters over to France were so treacherous didn’t the schooner receive protection from either destroyers or armed trawlers (both often used effectively to safeguard merchant ships)?
There is one other puzzling piece of evidence which has been the subject of much speculation, that is the fact that the Captain’s (Master’s) papers and log book were still on his desk, the last entry being the day that the ship left Falmouth[9]. German procedure which was rigidly observed stated that log books of captured crew and ships were to be removed and held as proof of claim. The idea that the captain of the enemy ship/submarine was negligent or unversed in German military protocol can be easily dismissed, so there must have been another reason why the log book was left behind. In my opinion the only plausible explanation is that the Germans were interrupted whilst in the process of capturing the Zebrina’s crew and had to evacuate the schooner in a hurry, maybe due to an approaching gale or squall or the sighting of an allied vessel, and therefore had no time to retrieve the log book.
Interestingly, research made into the fate of the Zebrina crew after the war ended found no evidence of a U-boat in the vicinity of the schooner’s course[10]. In addition, at the time no debris from an enemy vessel was found and no allied ship or submarine reported having launched an attack on a German target. Although this does not invalidate the theory as the severity of the weather could have shielded the vessel from detection or even been the reason for its destruction, it does add to the aura of mystery surrounding the crew’s last few hours onboard the schooner.
The Last Witness
After the Zebrina was decommissioned, she changed hands a number of times, eventually being fitted with shafting and a propeller. She ended her days as a houseboat, with her hold being converted into a boat building and motor boat repair depot[11]. In 1953, she was destroyed by fire at Velder Creek in Portsmouth[12]. With her demise, the last witness to the what happened to those lost sailors was gone.
What did happen to the men will always remain a mystery, an unsolved puzzle. In my opinion, the most plausible explanation is that the crew were captured by the Germans. Maybe as the Germans clambered onboard they noticed either a storm approaching or were warned that an allied ship was in the vicinity. In imminent danger they hastily led the men off the ship, with no time to grab the log book. The submarine was then either destroyed by a torpedo or bad weather, its fate cloaked by the violence of the sea and the stormy weather, leaving the Zebrina to its fate.
Sadly, the final resting place of those unfortunate men will never be found, but hopefully they are at peace wherever they may lie.
Notes:
[1] 15 Ghost Ships that Tell a Creepy Story, mysteriouslyfascinating.com/15-ghost-ships-that-tell-a-creepy-story/
[2] The Sunderland Echo & Shipping Gazette, March 13, 1937
[3] Councillor C.F. Langmaid (R.N., Rtd), Portsmouth Evening News, February 4, 1937
[4] Paul Middleton, The Zebrina – Ghost Ship Mystery, https://anomalien.com/the-zebrina-ghost-ship-mystery/
[5] Councillor C.F. Langmaid (R.N., Rtd), Portsmouth Evening News, February 4, 1937
[6] Commonwealth War Graves Commission, https://www.cwgc.org/
[7] Councillor C.F. Langmaid (R.N., Rtd), Portsmouth Evening News, February 4, 1937
[8] Ibid
[9] Paul Middleton, The Zebrina – Ghost Ship Mystery, https://anomalien.com/the-zebrina-ghost-ship-mystery/
[10] Ibid
[11] Councillor C.F. Langmaid (R.N., Rtd), Portsmouth Evening News, February 4, 1937
[12] Zebrina (ship), Zebrina (ship) – Wikipedia
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