Margareta

After Margareta was launched and christened, she mainly travelled between Norrland’s harbours and coastal towns in England and Germany.

On 14 December 1898, Margareta was headed home to Vätö loaded with ballast. After passing Häradsskär in strong winds and thick snow, the wind picked up. When darkness came, sleet began to come down hard, later developing into a full-fledged storm.

When, shortly after nine o’clock, Landsort was sighted, where a pilot was to be taken on board, a certain sense of relief spread among the crew. But due to the bad weather, the pilots couldn’t get out to the vessel. The captain with jurisdiction in those waters decided to continue without a pilot.

Immediately after passing Landsort, the ship ran into problems and the crew now sensed that the voyage would not end on a happy note. So to save themselves and the ship, they tried to sail Margareta in among the small islands north of Öja. To do this they had to cut the sails, which failed.

They dropped the anchors in an attempt to stop the uncontrolled progress. But they only managed to drop one of the anchors – the other one got stuck and was left hanging in just a few metres of chain. While they tried to set anchor, a hurricane-like gust came swooping in, pushing the ship towards Brännskäret.

In the strong winds, the ship repeatedly slammed into the rocky outcrops and burst a leak. The crew managed to get ashore, and in the morning they were able to establish that Margareta had sunk with only the masts visible above the surface. The crew was rescued later in the morning by locals.