The Fleetwood Motor Trawler Site

Fleetwood Trawler – M.F.V. Pygmalion FD132
Official Number: 182178
Gross Tonnage: 35grt / 24nrt
Engine: 120hp
Built: Brixham, 1947
Owner: J.A.S Wright, Fleetwood

History
The motor fishing vessel Pygmalion was trawling to the east of the Point of Ayre on the 26th of may 1964.

Her skipper was Richard Billington Sumner. Around 8:30 am the Calor gas stove exploded as the three man crew was having breakfast, knocking one man unconscious and injuring two others as fire quickly engulfed the vessel. The crew launched the self-inflating liferaft but it didn’t inflate properly. The badly injured crewman was lowered into it by the other two as the Pygmalion sank, some 9 miles east of the Point of Ayre.

It was a sunny day and distress rockets would have been of no use so a decision was made to wait until darkness before using them. To make matters worse a coal strike had reduced traffic to and from Whitehaven do no other vessel passed them.

They drifted for fourteen hours all the time within sight of the Isle of Man, but with no sign of rescue. The injured man, John Cowell, was in considerable pain and only an emergency injection of morphine eased his pain,

By 22:30 it had grown dark enough to use the flares and these were fired. The Whitehaven trawler Lorraine was outbound for the fishing grounds and she spotted the distress rockets and changed course towards the liferaft.

Meanwhile the signals had also been seen from the Maughold Lighthouse and the Ramsey lifeboat, Annie Rowland Isabella Forrest, was launched.

Lorraine, under the command of Peter Haroldson, reached the liferaft, took the three crewmen aboard and set his course for Ramsey where an ambulance was waiting.

The crew of Pygmalion were:
Richard Billington Sumner, Skipper.
Les Patterson, Deckhand.
John Cowell, Deckhand.
All were from Fleetwood.

Images

Pygmalion FD132 - Picture Courtesy of Mitchy

Map – Source Dictionary of Shipwrecks off the Isle of Man by Adrian Corkhill c2001

Map showing where the Pygmalion FD132 was lost.