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The wreck of the HMS Serpent

Camariñas, Terra de Soneira, A Coruña

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The wreck of the HMS Serpent

Historical milestone · Camariñas, Terra de Soneira, A Coruña

Wreck of the British cruiser HMS Serpent, a third-class Royal Navy vessel built at Devonport and launched in 1887. Under the command of Commander Harry Leith Ross, she was sailing from Plymouth to Sierra Leone when, during the night of 10 November 1890, she ran aground on the shoals of Punta do Boi, near Cape Vilán, in the heart of the Costa da Morte. Three sailors managed to reach Camariñas, exhausted; of the rest of the crew, 172 died and were buried by local residents in the so-called Cemiterio dos Ingleses, very close to the wreck site. The official account attributes the disaster to a navigational error and the weather conditions that night.

10 de noviembre de 1890

Photo: el Buho nº30 (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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