SS Maja

Glasgow, 10 October 1918, 2pm...

....Maja leaves port. The 1420 ton iron screw steamer owned by AB Tertia of Gothenburg is heading for France with 18 Swedish seamen, one Norwegian and 1950 tons of well stowed coal. Dawn breaks on the morning of the 11th, it's fine but slightly hazy with a westerly breeze and a light sea. Captain Claes Harald Trygve Soot-Tisell and the Chief Officer are on watch on the bridge and Maja is 15 miles east of Ardglass heading west south west at a speed of 8½ knots.

Suddenly, at 6.30am, they spy a periscope. It’s German submarine UB 126 though they don’t know that yet and they’ve no time to react before a torpedo hits Maja’s port side by the engine room, killing 9 of the crew in the explosion and throwing the rest into the water. Maja sinks rapidly, breaking in two. The lifeboats are smashed but the survivors are able to make for two rafts. The Captain and four men take one, Boatswain Olaf Olsen and four others take the second but they soon drift apart and lose sight of each other. The Captain’s raft is picked up by SS Cameo at 6pm and landed at Ayr; fishing boat St Antony rescues the Boatswain’s raft 12 miles south east of Ardglass where they land at 8.20pm.

In several sources, probably all originating from the UKHO dataset, two locations are given for Maja  ^{[1, 2]} . These seem to have come from the accounts given under oath by the Captain and the Boatswain following their rescue: the Captain reports the position of Maja's abandonment and sinking as 54.12.30.N, 5.36.00.W which corresponds with UKHO 5056. The Boatswain's "15 miles east of Ardglass" corresponds with UKHO 5075, in distance if not in exact direction  ^[3] .

In fact, many shipwrecks around the UK coastline have been misidentified or not identified at all, so it's also possible that neither of these are right. So, using Maja as an example, how can we identify a wreck and, as importantly, why do we need to?

Finding Maja....

There's a lot of free resources online which give details of the shipbuilding yard, construction date, overall dimensions and any previous names  ^[4] . These sources make it easier to find further information in online archives, such as plans and records held by Lloyd's Register Foundation  ^[5] . Physical archives hold valuable information too: the story this piece opened with is based entirely on official war reports in the National Archives, in which Captain Soot-Tissel and Boatswain Olaf Olsen give detailed descriptions of the event, including the damage Maja suffered  ^{[See 3]} . These reports give an estimated location at the time of attack which we can cross reference with other sources including U-Boat Kriegtagebuch, which logged attacks  ^[6]  . We can compare all these details with any images we have of the wreck, including sonar scans which we'll look further at below.

To narrow down potential 'candidates' for Maja we load the UKHO Wrecks and Obstructions dataset into mapping software  ^{[See 1]} . Previous Unpath’d Waters research has shown that wrecks are usually within 12 miles of their given location so we create a buffer zone to search within. We then discard wrecks that far too large, ‘dead’ records (locations where wrecks can no longer be detected by sonar), ‘foul ground’ (cables and the like). We can also combine the time, date and weather detailed in official reports with meteorological data and archives  ^[7]  to model drift patterns, which can help narrow down the candidates.

This left 28 possible wrecks. We then compared multibeam echosounder (sonar) surveys  ^[8]  with the archive information we'd gathered. This led us to the wreck we now believe is Maja: UKHO 5064, located half way between the two current locations. This also matched with information we later received from naval historian Michael Lowrey, from the logbook of UB 126. Take a look below, we think you'll agree it's a very good match!

Why do we need to identify wrecks?

Confirming a wreck’s identity gives us its age, construction materials, and the date it was lost. When we combine this with our knowledge of seabed conditions and marine activity we can assess how well preserved the vessel might be, and plan for future preservation. If we can identify the cargo we can also assess any risks this might poses to marine and human life, such as toxic chemicals or even munitions. Some wrecks, like Maja, may also be sailors’ graves. While these aren’t automatically protected it’s important to treat them with respect. Through archive research we now also now know the names of the sailors for whom Maja is the last resting place, though here there's also a word of caution on cross referencing sources: Göteborgposten (The Gothenburg Post) took the names for the sailors lost from a crew list registered in June ^[9] ; the actual names are in the official report, held by the National Archives, and given by Boatswain Olaf Olsen ^[10] 

Of course sinking is just one chapter in a wreck’s life, as is identification. The cargoes ships carried, the passages they sailed, and the lives of crew members tell stories that span time and space and highlight the importance of the maritime world. The complex ecosystems wrecks become over time also form an important aspects of a ship's biography. To voyage into Unpath'd Waters looking at these ideas see our StoryMaps for  SS Kafue ,  SS Peshawur  and  SV Tommi . Maritime archives offer opportunities for endless stories: you just have to dive in!

References  ^[1]  UK Hydrographic Office  Wrecks and Obstructions  dataset,  QGIS mapping software  (Open Source) with  Open Street Map   ^[2]  See Unpath'd Waters  portal  into marine data collections;  Canmore  and  HERoNI   ^[3]  National Archives. 1918. Irish Sea: German Submarines, July-November 1918. London:  ADM 137/1517   ^[4]  See  www.wrecksite.eu ,  uboat.net , and  www.sunderlandships.com   ^[5]  See Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage and Education Centre  Ship Plan and Survey Report Collections  and  Lloyd’s Registers      ^[6]  Information provided by M. Lowrey, personal communication  ^[7]  Met Office  Daily Weather Report   ^[8]  CAMS, School of Ocean Sciences (Bangor University); School of Geography & Environmental Sciences (Ulster University); INFOMAR data visualised in  Fledermaus Viewer  (free) and CloudCompare ( Open Source )  ^[9]   Svenska Tidningar /Kungliga biblioteket (the Swedish National Library). For newspaper reports on Maja's early life as Western Star see the  British Newspaper Archive . Though this resources is behind a paywall it may be accessible via your local Public Library.  ^[10]  National Archives. 1918. Irish Sea: German Submarines, July-November 1918. London:  ADM 137/1517 

Further reading Unpath'd Waters StoryMap  Imaging and identifying Irish Sea shipwrecks  Unpath'd Waters StoryMap  Preservation potential of Irish Sea shipwrecks