SS Stolwijk, a Dutch cargo ship of 2,489 tons, was wrecked off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland on 6 December 1940.
[1] She was part of a Convoy SC 13 sailing from the Dominion of Newfoundland to Liverpool, England, when her rudder was damaged in a fierce storm.
The rescue of the survivors was conducted in terrible weather conditions and both the RNLI and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands awarded medals to the Irish lifeboat crew.
The ship was powered by a triple expansion steam engine of 1200 IHP, made by NV Machinefabriek 'Kinderdijk', driving a single propeller.
[2] Erhardt & Dekkers' ships were all named after towns and villages that ended with "wijk", in this case Stolwijk in South Holland.
On a voyage from Corner Brook, Newfoundland to Glasgow,[1] Stolwijk was one of 32 merchant ships in SC 13[9] escorted by six Royal Navy warships Clarkia, Heliotrope, Sabre, Scimitar, Shikari and Wellington.
The anchor was dropped but the chain snapped and even going in full reverse did not halt the ship's steady drift toward the rocky Irish coastline.
The British ship SS Ashcrest 5,652 tons, was also part of SC 13 and also experienced a broken rudder during the storm.
On 7 December 2015, Arranmore publican and singer-songwriter, Jerry Early (son of Andrew Early, the last eye witness on Arranmore to remember the day, who knew the lifeboat crew and story well) released a song on iTunes called "I'll Go", to commemorate the actions of the lifeboat crew.
It has received considerable airplay in Donegal since the launch and all proceeds were being donated towards the creation of a permanent monument on Arranmore Island.