SS Acme, steel coaster built Pimblott, Northwich, 1903
227 gt 79 nt, 110 x 22 x 10 ft, C 2-cyl engine
Owned Mrs Lena Fielding, Liverpool
Cargo of timber from Dublin to Liverpool
Deck cargo shifted and she capsized on 28 June 1928 off South Stack
Crew of 6 (and 1 stowaway) saved in own boat and picked up by SS
Rimfakse.
SS Acme (after completion at Pimblott's in Northwich)[image from Mersey Rovers]:
Newspaper reports:
An amusing story of the misfortunes of a 17-year-old stowaway was told
last night by the crew of the coaster Acme, which turned turtle and sank 16
miles off Holyhead on Thursday afternoon. The lad stowed away at Liverpool on
an American ship bound for New York, but was discovered soon after the boat
cleared the the Mersey, and was put ashore at Wexford. There he decided he
would go home, and tramped to Dublin. But he had no money wherewith to pay his
fare to England, perforce he stowed away again - this time on the steamer Acme,
which was sailing to Garston with a cargo of timber. But the Acme had bad
weather in St. George's Channel. Some sixty miles from the Isle of Man, her
cargo shifted, and, without a moment's warning, she turned turtle. The
presence of the stowaway had not been suspected; but, at the last moment, he
scrambled aboard the only boat that got away.
The Acme
left Dublin on Thursday morning [28th June 1928] and should have been at its
destination that
night, but, off Holyhead, part of the deck cargo was shifted by heavy
seas with the result that the ship heeled on its side and sank within twenty
minutes.
ADRIFT IN HEAVY SEA. Luckily the lifeboat fell into the water under
the lee of the ship, and the six men who formed the crew, together with
the stowaway, were able to jump into it and get clear before the ship went
down. The boat drifted north in the heavy sea and by ten o'clock, when it was
sighted off the Isle of Man by a Norwegian ship bound for Glasgow, the seven
men were almost exhausted. On board the Norwegian ship "the
Rimfakse" everything possible was done for them.
Postscript The position of sinking was specified as "16 miles off Holyhead" or as "off South Stack". The route from Dublin to Liverpool would head 83° to pass north of the Skerries off Anglesey. This would make the location of the sinking in deep water (50m). I am not aware of any report of discovery of the wreckage.