Bella Tumulty

Official Number 68215

The barquentine Bella Tumulty was built by A.B. Gowan & Son at Berwick-upon-Tweed in October 1872. She was owned by James Fisher and registered at Barrow-in-Furness.

The shipping intelligence columns of the Barrow Times in January 1879 noted that the Bella Tumulty, Capt. Rowlands, was at Curacao, loading for a British port.

The Bella Tumulty was wrecked on 17th November 1880 at Los Roques, Venezuela. The barquentine carried 8 hands all told, under the command of Capt.John Elias Evans. She had left Swansea on the 29th September and was bound for Tucacas, Venezuela, with a cargo of 250 tons of coke and patent fuel. On the afternoon of 17th November they sighted Orchilla Island, then the lighthouse on one of the Los Roques islands. The Bella Tumulty  was steered between these two islands, and was considered to be in mid-channel, about 10 miles clear of the land. At about 8 p.m. the vessel, travelling at about 8 knots with the wind dead aft, and under mainsail and square sails,  struck a reef. The sails were taken in, but the sea was too high to allow anchors to be put out. By midnight there was 17 inches of water in the hold, and in the morning the vessel fell over to leeward, carrying away her bulwarks. At 6 a.m. the mate, bosun, a seaman and boy were sent ashore in the longboat, with some provisions. Leaving the boy on the land, the three men tried to return to the vessel, but were prevented by the swell and shallow water. A coloured man then swam from the lighthouse to get a line from the vessel, which he secured to a rock, and by this means three of the remaining men were saved. Capt.Evans was last seen as the line was secured, and was assumed to have been swept to his death by the seas breaking over the vessel. His body was found on the edge of the reef thirty minutes later.

The Court of Inquiry gave no criticism of the master's conduct, other than a general comment that vessels should be supplied with large-scale charts rather than relying on general charts, such as that used. The chart, Laurie's General Chart of the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico, showed the lighthouse incorrectly on Cayo Grande, rather than on El Roque, 12 miles to the NW.
 

Name	Year Built	Gross Tons	Length (feet)	Breadth (feet)	Depth (feet)	Masts	Figurehead	Stern	Lloyd's Classn.
Bella Tumulty	1872	202	109.6	23.2	12.3	3

Sources :

1. Berwick Shipyard - Build List 1841-1878 - indicates that the Bella Tumulty was the 21st of 26 vessels built by Gowan for James Fisher.
2. Mystic Seaport Library Ship Register Search has shipping register details for all years from 1874 to 1881 - name mis-spelled as "Bella Tumilty".
3. American Lloyd's Register of American and Foreign Shipping, 1874 - names master as Rowlands.
4. Details on Capt.Thomas Rowlands and Capt.John Elias Evans on Welsh Mariners website.
5. Board of Trade Inquiry reported in the Barrow Times, 12th February 1881, p8.
6. Wreck Report for 'Bella Tumilty', 1881 (Report of Court of Inquiry held at Liverpool on the 8th and 9th February 1881)- from Port Cities Southampton website - name again mis-spelled.
7. Los Roques is an archipelago approx. 100 miles N of the Venezuelan coast.