Rangor

The steel motor trawler Rangor was launched from the Peterhead yard of A J Mitchell and Co Ltd (Yard No 2) on 26th March 1959. She measured 115.5′ x 25.3′ x 11.2′ and her tonnage was 269 gross tons, 92 net tons. She was powered by a 6 Cylinder 4SA diesel engine by Mirrlees, Bickerton and Day, Stockport. Built for Rangor Fishing Co Ltd (P and J Johnson), Aberdeen she was registered in this port A288.

At 3:30pm on January 16th 1964 the Rangor arrived in Lerwick under the command of skipper John Chisholm. It was Chisholm’s first voyage in charge of Rangor and he had a crew of twelve men aboard. He had docked at Lerwick to repair a problem with engine’s reverse gear. The repair was quickly completed but, unfortunately, a second problem with the vessel’s radar was not resolved as there were no spares available in Lerwick for the model installed in Rangor. Shortly after midnight on 17th the ropes were cast off and she set out, heading south out of Lerwick harbour. Fifty minutes later she was aground on Munger Skerries, a rocky outcrop off Ness of Sound. She was lying with a twenty degree list to port but the weather was calm and the crew were in no immediate danger. The Lerwick lifeboat quickly reached the scene and stood by and soon after the Rocket Brigade reached the shore line close to the wreck and quickly set up the breeches buoy. The thirteen men aboard were quickly safely ashore leaving the trawler abandoned but in no great danger of going completely under. Hopes were high that she could be refloated. However, at 4:55am the police were alerted to a fire which had broken out towards the stern of the vessel. The Fire Brigade arrived at the scene but the vessel wasn’t close enough to the shore for them to render any assistance and the swell on the other side of the ship made any approach from that angle too dangerous to attempt. As the tide rose during the day the angle of list increased to close to sixty degrees making the trawler’s position even more precarious. Salvage experts arrived on site the following day but by 21st January the Rangor had slipped into deeper water with only a small portion of the wreck visible above the surface.

We do not have any reports about how much wreckage remains at the site but reports indicate that some wreckage exists in depths of 10 to 15 metres in approximate position 60° 07.967’N, 001° 09.076’W.

 

We would like to thank Lloyd’s Register Foundation – Heritage & Education Centre for allowing us to reproduce documents from their archive in this article.