This photo is from those given to Ken Harding by Avril Fitzpatrick.It was apparently taken from the ‘Summer Rose’ out in the fairway somewhere off Chapman Light. We remember quite a quantity of timber coming ashore along Canvey sea wall but can’t specify the year.
Can anybody remember the year and tell us of the eventual fate of ‘The Good Ship Skum!’? Presumably with a name like that she remained floating on the surface.
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Wow!
Found the vessel Skum.
D/S Skum was a Norwegian WWII vessel.
D/S Skum
Manager: Lorentz S. Lyngaas & Jacob O. Lyngaas, Tønsberg
Tonnage: 1304 gt
Built in Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht, Holland in 1916.
This site shows lists of all her voyages
apparently she came to Southend quite a lot during the war, lots of info but I have found nothing so far after the war.
Re D/S Skum
Thanks Jan. It appears that not only was this vessel a long-serving old work-horse but she and her crew were unsung heroes of WW2. A complete contradiction of the English appearance of her name!
On september 20th, 1948 at about 7 pm. “Skum” send SOS wich was recieved by the danish passengership A.P. Bernstorff who was en route from England to Esbjerg (Denmark) and was on a position not far away.
A.P. Bernstorff rushed to the ship in distress.
On arrival it was found that the “Skum” had a sharp tilt probably because the wood load on the deck had moved due to the raw sea.
I happend about 30 NM from Smith’s Knoll Lightship.
8 of aprox. 20 men from “Skum” was taken onboard on a lifeboat from A.P. Bernstorff by taking a rope arround them, jumping into the water and then pulled to the lifeboat, where they were taken on board.
I found this website while searching for A.P. Bernstorff’s efforts because, my grandfather was the captain of A.P. Bernstorff during this rescue operation.
I do not know if the image of “Skum” is from this incident, but it looks like it could be.
I seems that “Skum” was saved and was sailing many more years until 1966, where it was sold to be scrapped.
I´m still looking for further informations about this incident.
(This i writen with help from google-translate).
Hi Hans,
I had to go all the way to Australia to check that I didn’t dream up the timber that was washed up on our sea-wall on Canvey Island but my childhood friend Ken (he donated the photo) has confirmed he remembered it also but not the exact date but it was in the mid 1950s. At the time of putting the story onto the Archive site as the photo was amongst several others which were owned by Mr Fitzpatrick the owner and captain of the ‘Summer Rose’ pleasure boat we assumed that the good ship Skum was the source of that timber. Lesson no 1; never assume anything!! as it does seem more likely from your info this is the event that took place many years earlier further up the E, coast not in the Thames estuary!
In fact on further inspection tow lines can be seen attached to the bow. This will remain a mystery as Mr F is long gone. Unless the good ship Skum was in the habit of cargo slippage our washed -up timber it must have originated from another vessel. I would assume with your connection to the Danish passenger ship you are from Denmark, WELLCOME to the Canvey Community Archive! Sorry this comment does not really help you with with your search.
PS You might know the word ‘scum’ in today’s colloquial English is a very unpleasant description for ‘low-life’ people whereas in in Scandinavian it means just ‘foam’ I understand. Regards Graham Stevens.
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