Shipwrecks

Lizard Point Residency Shows

The wrong course...

Helston Folk Museum & Lumen Gallery, London

A travelling installation depicting the demise of the SS. Mohegan.

Coined the Cornish Titanic, the SS. Mohegan struck the Manacles, near Porthoustock, on the 14th October, 1898. Bound for America the Steamer set off from Tilbury but stuck to a chartered course which drove it a mile from the coastline. Despite warning rockets and boats in the area attempting to warn the Mohegan it struck Vase rock and sunk in under 20 minutes, with 106 lives perished. The recovered bodies were taken to St.Keverne Church where the majority were buried in a mass grave. Today, a solitary cross marks their place of rest. There was little evidence as to why the Steamer had been driven unto the rocks. A court ruling concluded this was simply ‘…the wrong course.’

The horror of these events may be a distant memory but the flattened remains of the Streamer survives as a notable dive site for underwater explorers and has been reclaimed by the sea as a host to dead men’s fingers, corals and anemones.

In remembrance of all who perished with the SS. Mohegan and of my colleague, Neil Warrior, Air France crash victim, lost in the Atlantic Ocean.