Johanna Thorden

Johanna Thorden — 1937

The Johanna Thorden was a newly built Finnish motor vessel on her maiden return voyage from New York to Gothenburg. During the early morning of 12 January 1937, in darkness and severe weather, she struck a reef somewhere in the eastern Pentland Firth and broke in two forward of the bridge.

There were 38 people aboard, including the crew, passengers, women and children. Two unpowered ship’s lifeboats were launched. The first, carrying 25 people, was lost with everyone aboard. The second reached Newark Bay in South Ronaldsay, where it capsized in the surf. Eight men survived, but five others drowned. In all, 30 lives were lost.

The vessel’s bow was subsequently found at the Tails of the Tarf, off Swona. Much of its valuable cargo was later recovered, and salvage work continued intermittently for many years. What happened to the stern remains uncertain.

Where did the ship first strike?

The survivors believed that the Johanna Thorden had struck one of the Pentland Skerries. Their descriptions of the reefs and surrounding lights support this, although their position could not be established with certainty in the darkness and storm.

A later interpretation placed the original strike at the Tails of the Tarf. Under this account, the captain may have mistaken the recently established Tor Ness light for the light at Tarf and altered course too soon. The ship therefore struck Swona directly, explaining why its bow was found there. This became the commonly accepted local account and was supported by the known position of the wreckage.

Gary Conner later revisited the evidence and proposed that the survivors had been broadly correct. In his reconstruction, the ship first struck Louther or possibly Clettack among the Pentland Skerries. After the vessel broke in two, the bow remained afloat and was carried through the complex eddies and counter-currents of the Pentland Firth before grounding at Tarf.

Both interpretations remain plausible. The Tarf theory provides the simpler explanation for the bow’s known location, while the Pentland Skerries theory gives greater weight to the survivors’ accounts. The principal unresolved difficulty for the Pentland theory is a contemporary report that James Rosie Snr first noticed wreckage at Tarf at about 9.30 am. Conner’s proposed drift does not bring the bow to Swona until later in the morning. Until the meaning and reliability of the 9.30 time can be established and the proposed drift tested against the tides the original point of impact must remain uncertain.