Ex-Hull trawler goes to the knacker's yard after buccaneering career raising millions in treasure and frontline Falklands service

Alexandra Wood
By Alexandra Wood

Senior reporter

Published 28th Aug 2024, 15:51 BST
Updated 29th Aug 2024, 10:31 BST
Moored up at a shipbreaker’s yard in Denmark she cuts a sorry sight, just weeks away from being hauled up a slipway and broken up.

The vessel which started life as Farnella has had an amazing 50 years – serving in the Falklands and then for years a treasure-hunter raising a fortune from the seabed.

Farnella was launched in 1971 by Cleland Shipbuilders in Willington, Quay, Wallsend on the River Tyne for J. Marr & Sons and worked out of Hull as a stern trawler.

But just a few months later she and eight other Hull vessels, including famously the Hull ferry Norland, were called up for active service in the Falklands.

MONDAY DECEMBER 12 2011 SHIPPING TRAWLER The fomer Hull trawler Farnella, now named the Odyssey Explorer and an exploration and discovery vessel, back in her home port for a refit yesterday. She was built in 1972 and requisitioned as a minesweeper during the Falklands War. PICTURE: TERRY CARROTTMONDAY DECEMBER 12 2011 SHIPPING TRAWLER The fomer Hull trawler Farnella, now named the Odyssey Explorer and an exploration and discovery vessel, back in her home port for a refit yesterday. She was built in 1972 and requisitioned as a minesweeper during the Falklands War. PICTURE: TERRY CARROTT
MONDAY DECEMBER 12 2011 SHIPPING TRAWLER The fomer Hull trawler Farnella, now named the Odyssey Explorer and an exploration and discovery vessel, back in her home port for a refit yesterday. She was built in 1972 and requisitioned as a minesweeper during the Falklands War. PICTURE: TERRY CARROTT

The Farnella and three other requisitioned Marr trawlers, Cordella, Junella and Northella were stripped of their fishing gear and refitted as minesweepers by the time they sailed for the South Atlantic on April 25 1982, with the usual crew replaced by the Royal Navy – apart from the ships’ engineers who decided to stay onboard, so the story goes.

After troop landings they were used for covert night time operations which involved dropping off marines, the SAS and other special forces mainly into West Falklands, writes maritime historian Dr Robb Robinson.

But that wasn’t the end of the adventure for Farnella. In the 1980s, still owned by J Marr, she carried out seabed surveys in the Atlantic, Caribbean and Pacific, crewed by Hull fishermen, working with scientists from Wood’s Hole Connecticut, as part of the United States Geological Survey.

Later acquired by Odyssey Marine Exploration she was renamed the Odyssey Explorer. Her first big discovery was the American Civil War wreck of the Republic, lost in a hurricane off Georgia in 1865.

The 42-pounder bronze cannon recovered from the shipwreck site of HMS Victory in the English Channel in 2008 is lowered onto the deck of the Odyssey Explorer. A British maritime charity says that a Florida-based deep-sea salvage company will help explore the wreck of the renowned 18th-century warship it discovered at the bottom of the English Channel four years ago. The newly established Maritime Heritage Foundation said Monday that Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. plans to scan the wreck of the HMS Victory with a robotic submersible with an eye toward answering questions such as why the ship sank beneath the waves and whether it carried any treasure. (AP Photo/Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.)The 42-pounder bronze cannon recovered from the shipwreck site of HMS Victory in the English Channel in 2008 is lowered onto the deck of the Odyssey Explorer. A British maritime charity says that a Florida-based deep-sea salvage company will help explore the wreck of the renowned 18th-century warship it discovered at the bottom of the English Channel four years ago. The newly established Maritime Heritage Foundation said Monday that Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. plans to scan the wreck of the HMS Victory with a robotic submersible with an eye toward answering questions such as why the ship sank beneath the waves and whether it carried any treasure. (AP Photo/Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.)
The 42-pounder bronze cannon recovered from the shipwreck site of HMS Victory in the English Channel in 2008 is lowered onto the deck of the Odyssey Explorer. A British maritime charity says that a Florida-based deep-sea salvage company will help explore the wreck of the renowned 18th-century warship it discovered at the bottom of the English Channel four years ago. The newly established Maritime Heritage Foundation said Monday that Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. plans to scan the wreck of the HMS Victory with a robotic submersible with an eye toward answering questions such as why the ship sank beneath the waves and whether it carried any treasure. (AP Photo/Odyssey Marine Exploration, Inc.)

A salvage effort recovered around one-third of the rare 19th-century gold and silver coins carried aboard, worth an estimated $75 million.

With the huge sums involved her discoveries were often controversial, no more so than in 2007 when the company scooped up a cargo of 500,000 silver and gold coins from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, off Portugal. Years of legal wrangling followed, but eventually in 2012 the US Supreme Court ordered Odyssey Marine to relinquish the treasure to Spanish authorities.

In 2009 she was used to locate the wreckage of HMS Victory off Plymouth, more than 200 years after the ship sank. The sinking is considered the worst British naval disaster in the English Channel, with 1,100 sailors losing their lives. A massive gold hoard rumoured to be aboard was not found, but among the 19,000 artefacts brought to the surface was two of Victory's bronze guns.

After her treasure hunting days finished she became an offshore support vessel, operated by a Baltic based concern. Dr Robinson said: “She’s a truly remarkable ship for any age or time.”