The steel steam tug Flying Cormorant was launched from the Port Glasgow yard of Robert Duncan and Co Ltd (Yard No 233) on 28th January 1888. She measured 135.2′ x 24.0′ x 12.0′ and her tonnage was 290 gross tons, 112 net tons. She was powered by a 2 cylinder compound steam engine by Rankine and Blackmore, Greenock driving two propellers, one at the rear and one at the bow, delivering 198 registered horse power. Her official number was 95044.
Extract Lloyd’s Register 1932.
Built for the Clyde Shipping Co (G J Kidston managers) Ltd she operated on the Clyde for many years. In November 1906 she was purchased by Mr J McCausland of Portaferry, Northern Ireland who changed her name to Susan McCausland and registered her in Belfast. In 1911 she was purchased by Workman Clark and Co Ltd of Belfast who renamed her Milewater. She was requisitioned for war service in Lough Swilly in 1917 but survived the remaining months of the war. She returned to Scottish ownership in 1925 before returning to Belfast, this time purchased by Mr P McCausland who operated her successfully out of Belfast for the next six years.
SS Flying Cormorant. Image – F C Gould
SS Milewater
At one o’clock in the morning of 10th May, 1931 the inhabitants of the village of Port Ellen were awakened by the loud discharge of distress rockets fired from a ship ashore on the treacherous Mull of Oa. It was particularly dark and cold that night as the town and the nearby coastline was shrouded in a thick damp blanket of fog but the members of the local rocket brigade jumped from their beds, clambered into their clothes and rushed out into the cold night. They quickly got out their lifesaving equipment and raced to the assistance of the crew of the disabled ship.
Meanwhile the seven man crew of the Milewater, which had indeed run aground in the fog on the east side of the Mull of Oa below Stremnish Farm, struggled to get the ship’s boat lowered into the water. Thankfully the night was fairly calm and they were able to get ashore safely with the help of the farmer from Stremnish and his four sons before the rocket crew or the Campbeltown lifeboat, which had also received the distress call, reached the scene. Interestingly the Milewater had been en route to Tiree from Larne to assist in the discharge of cargo from the wreck of SS Malve which had gone ashore at Tiree earlier in the year but instead was to become a wreck herself. By the following day reports from the local Lloyds agent indicated that the ship was settling back into the water and was already submerged from midships aft.
SS Milewater ashore on the Mull of Oa
The wreckage of the Milewater has been located in position 55° 35.003’N 06° 15.711’W (GPS). She is well broken and lies in 5 to 11 metres of water close to the shore off Mullach Mor.
