The steel Isles Class steam trawler HMS Brora was launched from the Beverley yard of Cook, Welton and Gemmell Ltd (Yard No 673) on 18th December 1940. She measured 164.0′ x 21.3′ x 11.2′ and her tonnage was 545 gross tons. She was powered by a reciprocating triple expansion steam engine by C D Holmes and Co Ltd., Hull delivering 850 indicated horse power. Built for the British Royal Navy she was one of one hundred and forty five Isles Class vessels constructed between 1939 and 1945. Brora was armed with a 76mm 12-pounder deck gun and three 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns and could carry up to thirty depth charges. Her primary role was as a submarine hunter.

HMS Mull – an ‘Isles Class’ HM trawler constructed by Cook, Welton & Gemmell (Yard No.677), to same design and specification.
During the early hours of the morning of 6th September 1941 Brora was on patrol north west of Lewis, Outer Hebrides under the command of Lieutenant Leonard Enevoldson RNVR. She was escorting the steamship Northern Star when she ran aground west of the entrance to The Obbe, near Leverburgh, South Harris. The details of her stranding are not available due to wartime censorship but it doesn’t appear that any of the crew were lost in the stranding. The tug Marauder was sent to the wreck site but found her on her beam ends, close to the shore line with no opportunity to refloat her. She was declared a constructive total loss. We know that the salvage company Arnott and Young visited the site but it is not clear how much, if any, salvage was actually undertaken. Two photographs from W.H. Arnott Young’s site visit to the wreck in 1941, are reproduced below.
In the late 1980’s she was reported to be lying upside down in two major pieces with superstructure collapsed inside the hull and propeller and rudder awash at low tide. A survey in 2008 reported the wreck in position 57° 46.225’N, 007° 02.143’W oriented 000/180 degrees in depths from 3 to 7 metres lying very close to the shore line.
We would like to thank W. Sloan Smith for allowing us to reproduce pictures from his photographic collection which records the work of the ship breaking company – W.H. Arnott Young & Company Ltd., of Dalmuir and Troon.