3-053-543 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Wreck of a schooner at Dover, 1873. Engraving of a sketch by Mr. J. R. Kirby, of the Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club. '...a large billyboy schooner had struck the rocks outside the harbour's mouth, and was inevitably doomed to quick destruction. It was evident that the only thing to be done was to endeavour to save the lives of the crew. The life-boat was soon launched...the schooner, which had in the mean time been driven, by the seas that were continually striking her, close to the south pier head. She came so close to the pier that it became possible to rescue the crew by means of ropes and other appliances. But one poor fellow, the master, had his leg broken, and was otherwise seriously injured...The men being saved, there was no need of the life-boat; and she was pulled by her crew back into the harbour. The doomed schooner, after bravely resisting the heavy seas about a quarter of an hour, was at last struck by an unusually heavy one. She was seen literally to dissolve into innumerable fragments of planks, most of which floated into the harbour till it appeared to be quite covered with them. The sketch was taken at the time the crew were being rescued. The schooner was the Ocean Queen, loaded with wheat, and bound to Calais'. From "Illustrated London News", 1873.