22 December 1914 - SS Boston
At 4am in the morning the Norwegian flagged cargo ship Boston, en route from Drammen to London with a cargo of wood, struck one, or possibly two mines, three miles east of Scarborough. The cargo of wood helped keep the ship afloat. The 1,168 ton vessel drifted south before running aground on the Black Dinks rocks at Filey Brigg. The eighteen strong crew, comprising of fifteen Norwegians and three Russians, took to the ship’s lifeboats, nine were picked up and landed at Scarborough, while Captain Olsen, the second mate and six other crewmen were picked up by the Filey lifeboat, Hollon the Third. The Filey lifeboat was launched at 7.30am and rowed through, what was described as, ‘a rough sea’ whipped up by strong north by north east wind. The survivors were transferred to the Filey lifeboat and two lifeboatmen rowed the Boston’s lifeboat to coble landing. By 12.30 they returned to Filey with eight crewmen from the Boston. The cook was the only crew member to suffer any injury. The eight survivors were accommodated at the Foords Hotel on Queen Street, Filey. The nine crew members landed at Scarborough caught the train to Filey where they were reunited with their ship mates. They viewed the Boston marooned on the rocks of Filey Brigg and then returned to the railway station where they travelled to Newcastle and finally by ship to Norway.
Initially, it had been hoped to refloat the Boston, but a combination of the damage caused by the explosion of the mines and the running aground on the rocks of the Brigg, turned her into a total loss. She was dismantled on the Brigg, with the metal being reused in the war economy, whilst the salvageable goods were auctioned on 26 January 1915 at Crawford’s Curing Yard, West Road, Filey (today the site of Filey Gin Distillery). The remainder of the salvaged goods were sold at West Pier, Scarborough on the same afternoon. Among the items sold at Filey were the usual nautical detritus of ropes, lamps and fenders. But there was also a pram, nineteen cans of fish balls and a bucket of soft soap. The 104 lots raised a total of £139 2s, 3d. The wreck of the Boston became something of a tourist attraction, with visitors being offered postcards for sale of the ship hard aground on Filey Brigg. In the wake of the drama of the Boston there was even a spy scare in Filey. Apparently a stranger to the town had aroused suspicions as he had been asking questions about Filey and its bay. When he was detained by the police, the discovery of a pair of field glasses and a revolver on his person seemed to substantiate rumours that he was an enemy agent. However, it transpired that he was a native of Leeds and was in Filey to attend the auction of salvaged goods from the wreck.
