Tyne and Wear HER(13800): Tynemouth, Sedgefly (Norman) - Details
13800
N Tyneside
Tynemouth, Sedgefly (Norman)
Tynemouth
Maritime Craft
Fishing Vessel
Trawler
Modern
C20
Wreckage
Steel, 520-ton, 50m long, 8.4m beam, 2.8m draught. British steam fishing trawler. She was built as the Norman in 1939, but requisitioned by the Royal Navy in September 1939, renamed HMT Sedgefly and converted into an anti-submarine patrol vessel, equipped with one 10.2cm (4in) gun. Her single screw propeller was powered by a three-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engine that used one boiler.
On 16 December 1939, just three months after being requisitioned, she was on patrol duties off the Tyne when she detonated a German-laid mine, founder and was lost.
The wreck, possibly that of HMT Sedgefly lies orientated in a south-south-east to north-north-west direction on a hard seabed of dirty sand and gravel, on the edge of the spoil ground in a general depth of 39m. The wreck lies in two halves, both of which are 5m high and reasonably substantial, with one half 10m in length and the other 15m long. Both are covered in an array of soft corals and numerous crustaceans and cod have been observed amongst the wreckage.
The Spokes database records the wreck as 1 miles off Tyne.
39797
69300
NZ3979769300
Young, R. (2001) Comprehensive guide to Shipwrecks of the North East Coast (The): Volume Two, Tempus, Gloucestershire. p. 168, Ian T. Spokes Wreck Database; National Monuments Record (1368253); Richard and Bridget Larn 1997 Shipwreck index of the British Isles, volume 3. The east coast of England : Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, County Durham, Northumberland Section 6, County Durham (CF); 1988 British vessels lost at sea 1914-18 and 1939-45 Section III Page(s)3; J J Colledge 1989 Ships of the Royal Navy, volume 2: navy-built trawlers, drifters, tugs and requisitioned ships from the fifteenth century to the present Page(s)201