Loss of MV Darlwyne
MV Darlwyne[n 1] was a pleasure cruiser, a converted Royal Navy picket boat, that disappeared off the Cornish coast on 31 July 1966 with its complement of thirty-one (two crew and twenty-nine passengers, including eight children).
Built in 1941, after ending its naval service in 1957, Darlwyne was used as a private cabin cruiser, first on the River Thames and later in Cornwall, where it became a commercial passenger boat, despite being unlicensed for such work.
It underwent considerable structural modifications, including the removal of its original watertight bulkheads and the conversion of its aft cabin into a large open cockpit.
A Board of Trade enquiry into Darlwyne's loss placed the main blame on Barratt and Bown for allowing the vessel to go to sea in an unsafe and unprepared condition.
The Board's report exposed the laxity with which boat licensing regulations were being administered, and led to stiffer penalties for non-compliance, but there were no immediate regulatory changes, and no criminal proceedings were recommended.
[4] In September 1959 the boatyard sold the boat to joint owners Messrs Lowe and Gray, who replaced the engines with less powerful twin Perkins P6 units each generating 65 hp.
[6] In the spring and early summer of 1966, under the supervision of Barratt's daughter, further substantial alterations were carried out, including the removal of the aft cabin to create an open cockpit area.
[7] During this period the boat was in regular use for trips by members of the Barratt family, including a Whitsuntide voyage across Falmouth Bay to the Helford River, where it apparently performed well in strong winds.
[10] Barratt's daughter advised Bown that they were preparing Darlwyne as "a twelve-passenger charter boat"; any number in excess of 12 would mean conforming with tougher Board of Trade regulations, and licensing might prove difficult.
[15] Robert Rainbird, proprietor of the Greatwood guest house at Mylor Creek, near Falmouth, was familiar with Darlwyne, having cruised with Bown in one of the earlier Tall Ships sailings.
On the evening of Saturday 30 July, amid celebrations following England's victory in the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, Bown and his friend Jeffrey Stock, a qualified engineer, visited Greatwood.
[16][17] Barratt, the boat's legal owner, professed ignorance of the arrangements made at Greatwood, believing, he said, that Bown had gone there to discuss with Rainbird future charter work once the necessary licences had been obtained.
[16] BBC weather forecasts for the Cornwall area, broadcast the previous evening and earlier that morning, were discouraging; all promised increasing winds, up to Force 7, with the probability of rain from midday.
At about 5:45 pm a farmer whose land overlooked the sea to the west of Dodman Point saw a launch running close to Hemmick Beach, moving westward.
[26] In the late afternoon a holidaymaker reported seeing four people apparently stranded on Diamond Rock, a semi-submerged reef off Porthluney Cove, west of Dodman Point.
Barratt's daughter believed the vessel to be "completely seaworthy",[35] while Rainbird surmised that it might have drifted southwards, out of fuel or with incapacitated engines, towards the Channel Islands.
[36] Others were more sceptical: Steve Gifford, who had briefly owned the boat, was appalled that 31 people were aboard a vessel that was simply not strong enough to meet the heavy seas it must have encountered, and thought it likely she would have broken up and sunk very quickly.
Searches by helicopter, Shackleton aircraft and lifeboats continued on 2 August, but were called off around mid-day due to poor visibility and adverse weather conditions.
[39] The Rapides covered a sea area of 2,500 square miles (6,500 km2), extending to the Channel Islands, before returning to Cornwall on 4 August without finding any trace of the missing vessel.
[40][41] Darlwyne's possible fate was raised in the House of Commons on 2 August when members, while expressing the hope that survivors would be found, were concerned about the apparent lack of enforcement of regulations that should have prevented an overloaded, unlicensed craft from putting out to sea.
[48] An analysis of the times shown on various watches found on the victims suggested that the sinking had probably taken place around 9:00 pm on 31 July, and thus that Darlwyne was afloat for around three hours after the last tentative sighting.
All commercial activity in the harbour was suspended; the royal yacht Britannia, at anchor on a visit to the port, removed its ceremonial bunting and dipped the White Ensign as a mark of respect.
[51] In December 1966 the navy storeship HMS Maxim investigated the seabed around Looe, after reports that a trawler had caught on an unidentified object and lost its nets.
[56] In the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, the court assumed that details had probably been finalised in the Greatwood bar, between Bown and the two guests who had initiated the request.
From the evidence of the stopped watches and the pathologist's reports of death by drowning in deep water, the court decided that it was likely that, around 9:00 pm, Darlwyne had been overwhelmed by heavy seas.
[61] Different testimonies were given about the number and timing of phone calls to the Falmouth coastguard station on the evening of 31 July, giving rise to a view that searches could have begun earlier.
[69] In this he echoed the Board of Trade report, which had stated that regulations relating to boat licensing "date from the Victorian era", and were wholly inadequate in modern conditions.
[52] In Parliament on 15 March 1967 the trade minister Joseph Mallalieu said that he had no plans to introduce further legislation for the licensing of pleasure boats plying for hire, but proposed to increase the penalties for infringement of existing regulations.
[71] Although the tragedy was keenly felt in Cornwall, its national impact, given the heavy loss of life, was relatively small, perhaps because it occurred during the post World Cup euphoria when public attention and headlines were directed elsewhere.
In July 2016, divers working with a BBC documentary team investigating the tragedy examined seabed locations closer to Dodman Point than the original searches.
