THE Dorset coast has been claiming ships and the lives of their crews since man first took to the water.

The treacherous Portland Race has sent many ships to a watery grave and the seabed around our coast is also littered with wrecks from numerous conflicts over the years.

Seafarers through the ages have learned to dread the ‘cruellest lee-shore in Dorset’ with more than 350 ships meeting their fate between Deadman’s Bay at Portland and Abbotsbury since the 14th century.

Moonfleet author J Meade Faulkener said of the notorious Chesil Bank: “Once on the beach, the sea has little mercy, for the water is deep right in, and the waves curl over and fall onto the pebbles with a weight no timbers can withstand.

“Then if the poor fellows try to save themselves, there is a deadly undertow or rush-back of the water which sucks them off their legs and carries them again under the thunderous waves.”

Local history enthusiast Andy Hutchings has several pictures in his extensive collection of ships that came to grief along the coast.

They include: n Patroclus, the Blue Funnel Line steamer, struck the rocks at Westcliff in 1907. She was sailing from Brisbane with a cargo of wool and skins when she ran ashore at Blacknor Point on Friday, September 13, 1907.

She was eventually refloated nine days later with the help of four tugs and a salvage vessel with 11 steam pumps working on deck. She returned to service after repair in Portland Harbour. She was sunk during the First World War.

Madeleine Tristan, loaded with grain from France, was driven ashore in Chesil Cove on Saturday, September 20, 1930.

She gradually broke up over the following years. In 1931 it was reported in the local press that residents had found means of boarding the vessel over the bank holiday weekend ‘experiencing the thrills of being on a real wreck’.

Preveza was not as fortunate as the Patroclus. In June 1920 the Greek-owned vessel collected coal and stores at Portland which were not paid for before she left for Cardiff. She was refused entry there as she was not insured. Unfortunately for the owners and crew, while returning to Rotterdam she went aground broadside of Chesil.

Local creditors nailed writs to the mast to prevent her from leaving. Heavy seas did their worst and she broke up.

Bulow, a German liner became stranded in fog at Mutton Cove on Sunday, June 14, 1914, while en route between Yorkshire and Southampton. The passengers continued their journey by train and the vessel was successfully refloated.

AN interesting sight for residents out for a Christmas Day stroll in 1930 was the French ketch L’Arguenon aground on Weymouth Beach.

She was en route from Poole to St Malo and dropped her anchors on a windy night.

Attempts by a naval stream pinnace to refloat her failed the following day and after lightening her ballast and with improvements in weather she was towed off by Louis Basso, a well-known local salvage expert.