Orkney Image Library

This is definitely the "Gunnaren", which grounded on the west side of Swona in August 1935. During salvage operations, the ship broke her back and became a total loss.

The Pennsylvania had a long thin funnel, was painted black and was an older looking ship altogether.

The Stroma men and others certainly displayed great ingenuity in salvaging various large items from shipwrecks in the Firth.

A friend told me today of an American ship wrecked during the war and loaded with army Jeeps- suddenly all the horse carts on an island had rubber wheels!!!.

The above ship is now thought to be the "Gannarn"

The ships wrecked in the Pentland Firth were a rich source of supply to the beachcomer as well as the adventurers who boarded these ships.

Many are the tales told of the cargo carried aboard, which in those days was mixed or the term was general cargo and was as diverse as cars, apples, hammer handles, spark plugs, tobacco, the list went on.

One woman that I knew went to visit her brother who lived on his own and strung across his living room was row after row of tobacco leaves drying but among them to add a bit of veriety he had some condoms, .
I understand the tobacco was not a plesent smoke after being in the sea- I dont know if the condoms were up to a safe standard or not!!!.

A "salvage team" went to get useful goods from a ship!! The practice was to tow a Yole as well as the the one being sailed so having extra capacity, for the " Useful Goods".

In this team was a father and his teenage son the father not seeing his boy for some time went to find him and he was found looking at a girlie magazine, the father banged his fist and told the lad "Flour we came for and flour well have".

The stories go on and on. Life does not have that sort of adventure anymore.

Any more tales of "The Pirates of the Pentland Firth" out there?

There was another wrecked on Swona, the Johanna Thorden. She went on the Tarf on 12/1/37. She was only completed on 21/11/36- must have been her maiden voyage. Any pics of her anybody? I only remember my father talking about it, the dates are from Miramar Index.

I have old photos of the Johanna Thorden and one of her fore mast sticking out of the water at the Tarf Tail of Swona, the day after she was wrecked. At present I do not have the expertise to display them on this website, but will do so later, unless someone else puts similar ones on in the meantime.
She was on her maiden voyage and left New York in a hurry on the return voyage to Finland, as the Baltic was freezing up.
The loss of life was tragic, especially as there were women and children involved. The Brims people reckoned that they could all have been saved, if the lifeboat had been launched on time.

My father and I own the ships lifeboat off the Gunnaren. It is named the Aurora and berthed in Kirkwall Marina