Tag Archives: St Andrew’s Day

Hull’s Quiet Disaster: The Christmas Day Tragedy of St. Finbarr

St Finbarr’s final trip was plagued by bad luck from the start. She took 14 days battling atrocious weather to get to Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, a trip usually done in half that time. Electrical faults reported from previous trips caused three delays before she even set sail from Hull’s St Andrew’s Dock on 16 November 1966. Ironically, it was St Andrew’s Day (the patron saint of fishermen), 30 November, when she reached the Newfoundland fishing grounds on her thirteenth and final trip. She had endured 38 days of foul weather, from Yorkshire’s Spurn Point to the storm-lashed grounds of the Grand Banks. Skipper Tommy Sawyer, a hard taskmaster, pushed his ship and her crew to the limit, 8 Photos, >click to read< 14:22