On 27th of October 1953 six of the seven crew of the Arbroath
lifeboat "Robert Lindsay" drowned when the boat
capsized in Arbroath Harbour just before dawn, after a fruitless
all-night search with the Anstruther lifeboat for the source
of flares reported by Elie Coastguard. Returning to station,
she attempted to run before the seas into harbour but went
over. The only survivor, local fisherman Archie Smith, managed
to grab a rocket line fired from the shore. It was widely
surmised at the time that the distress flares had been fired
by the Dundee sand ship Islandmagee, which was lost that week
with her crew of six, on passage from Dundee to Leith.
The Arbroath Lifeboat
Tragedy
by Fred Dallas.
Oh listen
while I tell you of the Arbroath tragedy
Of how six gallant lifeboatmen were thrown into the sea
On October twenty seven in the year of fifty three
And only one brave man was saved in that calamity
The night was dark and stormy and the lifeboat standing by
And all at once a rocket jumped into the angry sky
The "Robert Lindsay" ventured out to find the reason
why
But nothing could they find that night no matter how they
tried
Four hours they searched that Tuesday morn until the break
of day
But not a bit of wreckage could they find in Arbroath bay
"It's home and mugs of cocoa for us sailors while we
may
Or else we'll never see the shore," they heard the Cox'n
say
As they came back across the bar it was an awful sight
The lifeboat overturned them in the sea as black as night
They couldn't reach the shore alive though struggle as they
might
And only Archie Smith was saved upon that dreadful night
Two brothers sank beneath the waves, a father and a son
The bowman, Thomas Adams went the way that they had gone
And when the boat was washed ashore beneath the morning sun
The Cox'n, David Bruce, was lash'd the steering wheel upon
So let's remember all the men who go down to the sea
And all their wives and sweethearts dear wherever they may
be
And working men who give their lives in dire necessity
The fishermen who died that night in Nineteen Fifty-Three
"Following the disaster the boat was
repaired and was put into service at Girvan from 1955 to 1960.
Later she was moved to north Wales to the Criccieth station
where she remained for seven years from 1961 till 1968. She
was then taken out of service and was sold in 1969 for £827
to a Devon owner. A Mr Forester, a fisherman in a small village
near Lowestoft acquired her in 1986 and renamed her “
Zephyr”. About 1999 she was sold and now operates on
the Norfolk Broads as a leisure craft. It was in 1986 that
the cockpit of the boat was removed and presented to the Lowestoft
& East Suffolk Maritime Museum where it is the centrepiece
of lifeboat artefacts."
(The
above record of the Robert Lindsay is taken from http://www.theshoppie.com/
website)
