Wreck in the mudflats

In 1997, the discovery of a shipwreck west of the island of Föhr in Germany was reported to the State Archaeology Department of Schleswig-Holstein. Deteriorated frames were jutting out from the sediment at a length of almost 18 metres.

H. J. Kühn

Photo of the frames from Kühn (1999).

This wreck has been tentatively associated with the British schooner City of Bedford, which - according to local oral tradition - was en route to Esbjerg in Denmark with a cargo of saltpeter and drifted past the island of Amrum in a storm, where she capsized in the tidal mudflads on February 2nd, 1825. The crew drowned and their bodies were buried at the cemetary of Süderende on the island of Föhr. Some of the loose ship's timbers drifted onto Föhr's beach and were re-used in house constructions in Utersum.

The wreck remains are of pine, thus samples taken for dendrochronological analysis could not be dated.

Wikimedia Commons

A British topsail schooner, painting by William Clark, 1833.

The wreck is still in situ and regularly visited by hikers on guided tours through the mudflats at low tide.

• Kühn, H.-J. (1999).
  Gestrandet bei Uelvesbüll - Wrackarchäologie in Nordfriesland.
  Husum.
• Nordsee-Urlaub mal anders: Auf den Spuren alter Schiffswracks.