Lost 1955 - Cargo steamer
The Wychwood was a modern British steamer, barely five years old when she was lost. S.P. Austin & Son built her at Sunderland in 1950 for the London collier owners Wm. France, Fenwick & Co.; she measured 302.5 ft with a 45 ft beam and 2,506 gross tons.
On the evening of 11 August 1955, bound from Walton, Nova Scotia, to Port of Spain, Trinidad, with a cargo of barytes (a heavy mineral used in drilling mud and paint), she ran onto Bermuda's reefs in 18 ft of water about ten miles from Gibbs Hill Lighthouse. The next day the US Navy tug Papago and the US Coast Guard cutter Rockaway pulled her off. She was leaking badly, but her pumps were coping, and with her rudder damaged she was towed stern-first towards St George's.
Hurricane Diane was now approaching. On 13 August the Wychwood was anchored at Five Fathom Hole and abandoned, her crew taken off by the Rockaway. Shortly before noon on 14 August she was reported to have sunk in 50-60 ft of water, her pumps no longer able to keep up, with only the tips of her masts showing. A Marine Court of Inquiry put the stranding down mainly to the negligence of her master. Because she was a hazard to shipping, the wreck was later blown apart, and her remains lie scattered on the seabed.
Berg (1991) describes her as blown up and scattered on the seabed in about 50-60 ft.