Origins of Sanday shipwreck revealed

July 23, 2025 at 8:07 am

The community raced to save the timbers of the Sanday wreck before they were lost to the elements after their discovery in February last year. (Roderick Thorne)

The identity of a shipwreck discovered in February, 2024 on Sanday has now been revealed.

All available evidence points to the wreck being the Earl of Chatham, a former Royal Navy vessel called HMS Hind which was latterly renamed once it became a whaling ship.

A sixth rate 24-gun frigate, HMS Hind saw many years of active service, including the sieges of Louisbourg and Quebec in the 1750s and the American Revolutionary War in the late 1770s.

Once it was decommissioned, it was sold and renamed the Earl of Chatham, becoming a mighty 500-ton whaling ship.

As the Earl of Chatham, it completed four seasons in the Arctic before ultimately meeting its end in the Bay of Lopness in March, 1788.

Read more in The Orcadian, out in the shops on Wednesday.