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A huge P&O liner crashed into the Shagstone and was wrecked after a navigation mistake by the Captain.

Type

Steamship

History

Built in 1876 by Alexander Stephens & Sons in Glasgow with official number 73821, the Nepaul was owned by the P&O Steam Navigation Company and used as a Royal Mail steamship.  The keel was laid as the Theodor Körner for a German shipping company, one of four ships laid down in Linthouse new yard originally intended for the Hamburg to New York service.  When difficulties arose because of payment, three of the ships were bought by the Hamburg Amerika Company while the builder retained the fourth.   The P&O needed to buy more modern vessels, so in 1876, they bought the fourth hull and named her Nepaul.  Described at the time as a ‘masterpiece of modern construction’, the Nepaul is one of the largest vessels ever wrecked in the Plymouth area; she was 114.3m long and 3554 gross registered tons.  The steamship was propelled by a 600 hp 2-cylinder steam engine driving a single screw; she was capable of 14 knots when originally built.  In addition to carrying mail, the Nepaul could transport 117 first-class and 38 second-class passengers as well as lots of cargo.

Print showing the Nepaul wrecked at the Shagstone, click the image for a larger version

The last voyage of the Nepaul from Calcutta to London started on 7th November 1890, where she loaded 13,000 chests of tea, 1,500 bags of wheat, 1,000 bags of rice, five boxes of indigo dye, jute, dispatches, specie (money in coins) and nine passengers.  She was under the command of Captain George Westrop Brady; the crew of 147 was chiefly Lascars, while the officers and engineers were European.  On 4th December, she left Marseilles for London via Plymouth. On Wednesday, 10th December, at 5.10 pm, the Nepaul had passed the Lizard in Cornwall and was doing 13 knots when the lighthouse on the Eddystone rock was sighted 13 miles off.  There was a light easterly wind and a slight swell, but shortly afterwards the weather became misty, and the vessel’s speed was reduced.  On the approach to Plymouth, they tried to summon the pilot who should have been waiting there to guide them in, but no vessels appeared, so she carried on without.  The weather then became very dark and overcast, and the speed of the vessel was reduced.

At 7.20 pm, a light was seen off the port bow that was thought to be on the west end of the Plymouth Breakwater, so the crew were ordered to their stations.  A flashing light was seen off the starboard bow and the Master claimed during the inquiry that he gave the order to stop the engines and put the helm over hard to port.  The chief and second engineer’s acccounts disagreed, saying that the engines were not slowed.  At 7:40 pm, a buoy was seen off the port bow, and eight minutes later, while still turning to port, the Nepaul struck a rock near the Shagstone, on the east side of Plymouth Sound.  Her bows swung round with her head to the south-west, and she lay almost on top of the remains of the wrecked steamship Constance. Her engines were immediately stopped, then put into reverse at full speed to try to get her to move, but the ship was stuck fast.  The Nepaul began to rapidly take on water, so the watertight doors were closed, the pumps started, and distress rockets and guns were fired. 

HMS Trusty, Government tugs Etna and Perseverance, plus tugs Vixen and Triumph, were sent out to see if they could tow her off, but the water continued to rise, and Nepaul refused to move.   The crew spent the night and the next day saving the specie on board and what they could of the passengers' baggage and the cargo, which was insured by Lloyds’ for £100,000.  The next day, the Company agents sent boats and men to salvage what they could.  Despite the list of the ship, the men managed to save nearly all the furniture and fittings from the saloons and cabins, copper pans from the galley, bedding from the cabins and even the linen from the saloons.  The tea spoiled by seawater was worthless, but the chests it was packed in were unaffected, so the chests were saved and the tea thrown overboard.  Were the spoiled tea to be landed, it would incur duty payments of 4 pence per pound!.  The watertight compartments eventually gave way and flooded the whole ship from end to end, causing the stern to sink still further.  At high water, just 7m of the bow was still visible above water, so they placed a light on the highest point as a warning to other ships. 

Salvors Pitt and Roberts of Leeds purchased the ship and the cargo at an auction in London.  They aimed to break up the ship and send the iron to the North of England for recycling.  However, it seems that they didn’t finish the job because in November 1893, a local M.P. asked the Board of Trade to remove the remains of the Nepaul as they were obstructing ships heading through the Eastern entrance to Plymouth Sound.  The Admiralty did a survey, and the Harbour Master was instructed to get the obstruction removed.

The Board of Trade inquiry commended the captain and the ship’s officers for the way they managed after the ship went on the rocks.  There were inconsistencies in the accounts from the ship’s officers, and they were unwilling to commit themselves, but it seems that the ship was lost through negligence.  The inquiry found that the stranding of the vessel was caused by the Master continuing to proceed in very dark and misty weather in the direction of the shore after the soundings obtained had warned him of the ship’s proximity to danger, and by not promptly and completely stopping the headway of the ship when the buoy was sighted on the port bow.  The Court suspended Brady’s Master's certificate for six months.

Diving the Nepaul

Site plan of the Constance, Nepaul and Glen Strathallan by The SHIPS Project, click the image for a larger version

South of the Shagstone, Renney Rocks

The Nepaul is not on the Shagstone as is often thought; she grounded on a shallow rock reef 100m to the south.  The huge iron ship was heavily salvaged in 1890 and in 1910, so most of the hull and large fittings were taken away, but the salvors did not get everything, so sections of the hull can still be found on the seabed in 10m depth.  The seabed is made up of sandy gullys between rock reefs topped with kelp, so divers have to get under the kelp and onto the seabed to find parts of this wreck.  The wreckage is extremely broken up and mixed with that of other wrecks, but the remaining hull of the Nepaul can be identified as it's made of heavily-built iron.  To the north can be found the remains of the steamship Constance on the east side of the Shagstone and close by to the southwest is the hull of the scuttled gentleman’s steam yacht Glen Strathallan.  This area, like the rest of Plymouth Sound, is covered in rubbish dumped in the sea in the Victorian era, so sorting out the junk from the shipwreck artefacts can be difficult.  But sometimes it's easy to tell, especially when divers find smaller objects such as cutlery and pottery with the P&O company crest.

Nearby wrecks include the Rothesay , the Mewstone Cannon Site ,Constance and Glen Strathallan

Last updated 30 December 2025

Position GPS: 50° 18.996 N  004° 07.499 W
Depth: 12m

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