KETCH CERES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 1, 2 January 1937, Page 20

KETCH CERES

SUNK IN FOG The oldest ketch in the world in active service, the 54-ton Ceres, of Bude, built in 1811, sank in Barnstaple Bay in the early morning recently. The skipper and mate, the only people on board, were rescued by the Appledore lifeboat. The Ceres, which was bound from Swansea to Bude with a cargo of slag, developed a leak. There was a dense fog at the time. The skipper, Captain Oswald Jeffery, of Appledore, was resting when the mate, Walter Ford, ran below to tell him that the engineroom was rapidly filling with water. The Ceres was recently fitted with a Diesel engine. The pumps were worked until the two men were exhausted, but the vessel continued to make water, and Captain Oswald Jeffery ordered the small boat to be launched. Rockets were lit by flares, the heavy rolling of the waterlogged vessel making it impossible to light matches. When all the rockets but one had been fired the men abandoned the ketch. Captain Jeffery fixed the last rocket between the ribs of the boat and fired, and this was seen from Appledore. When the lifeboat arrived the Ceres was too far submerged to be towed ashore. The Ceres, which had been owned for 85 years by Petherick and Sons, of Bude, had had a remarkable career. She carried supplies during the Napoleonic wars, being several times chased by French privateers. A hundred years later she carried munitions 'in the Great War and narrowly escaped being torpedoed. She was the oldest vessel registered at Lloyd's.