Mystery of ‘Sugar Ship’ STILL rotting on its side off UK coast after sinking 50 years ago as ‘no one knows who owns it’
FIVE decades ago, the MV Captayannis – dubbed the ‘Sugar Ship’ -capsized off the Firth of Clyde.
The rusting vessel now lies on a sandbank between Greenock and Helensburgh – and has attracted wide-eyed tourists since that fateful night on January 27, 1974.
While moored, the ship was waiting to unload its cargo of raw east African sugar for the Tate & Lyle refinery in Greenock.
But 60mph gales whipped up the waves, and before captain, Theodorakis Ionnis bellowed at his crew to start the engines, water flooded in and overwhelming the pumps – causing the ship to keel over.
The crew were rescued, without injury, by the tug Labrador and the MV Rover of Clyde Marine Services.
The vessel has sat stubbornly for over fifty years, and is now a haven for divers and curious kayakers.
She remains unable to be removed due to a wrangle between her owners and insurers, and plans to have her blown up were shelved due to fears over damage to the nearby Ardmore Point bird sanctuary.
He said: “It was always a puzzle to me why the boat was never removed,” former Provost Billy Petrie said.
“I remember discussions about it in the council at the time and we got in touch with the Clyde Navigation Trust, who said it wasn’t a navigational hazard.
“I think the main issue with the removal was that no one would accept responsibility for it – between the owners and the insurers.
“If it had been in the English Channel or something, it would never have been allowed to stay there.”
Billy added that the boat became an attraction in the area for both tourists and locals.
He added: “The Waverley and small ferries used go on a detour to go and see it.
“It was a big point of conversation in the town at the time. I went round it myself a few times in a small boat, and it really was quite a hulk. It was some size.
“It felt a bit like being in Robinson Crusoe or something – it was such a big area, like an island.
“You used to see boys sat on top of it fishing – whether they caught anything or not I don’t know.
“The sugar load was never seen again – just like when you put sugar in your tea, it just dissolved in the water.”
Elsewhere, a collection of Russian soviet-era “River Rockets” have been left to rot near a forest in an abandoned ship graveyard.
The rusting passenger boats, which sailed above the water at 150kmph fuelled by turbine jet engines, were once a 1980s revelation.