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HMS Eurydice was a 26-gun wooden-hulled Royal Navy corvette, launched in 1843.[a]In Greek mythology, Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus. After she was killed by a snake he secured her release from the underworld, on the condition that he did not look back at her on their return to the world of the living. When he did, Eurydice disappeared.[1] The ship was the victim of one of Britain’s worst peacetime naval disasters when she sank off the Isle of Wight in 1878, with the loss of all but two of the 366 men and boys on board.[2]
The first of several reports from sailors claiming to have sighted the phantom HMS Eurydice date from 1880. She is said to haunt Dunnose, a cape on the Isle of Wight.[3] Two years after the Eurydice was lost her sister ship, HMS Atalanta, set off from Bermuda, never to be seen again.[4]
Service
Eurydice was commissioned on 27 June 1843, and saw service on the North American and West Indies station between 1843 and 1846. Recommissioned on 30 May 1846, she was deployed for four years to the South African station, then recommissioned again on 4 April 1854 for three years, initially in the White Sea during the Crimean war, followed by the North American and West Indies station.[4]
The ship was converted into a stationary training ship in 1861, and in 1877 refitted as a seagoing training ship, in which role she was deployed on a three-month tour of the West Indies and Bermuda.[4]
Loss
On 6 March 1878 Eurydice began her return voyage from the West Indies, heading for Portsmouth. On 24 March 1878, Eurydice was caught in a fierce squall in Sandown Bay, off the Isle of Wight,[4] just eight miles (13 km) from Portsmouth. Crucially, her gun ports were open, ready to fire a salute as she entered the harbour. But the squall laid the ship, still under full sail, on its side, allowing water to pour in through the open gun ports, sinking it. Seamen Benjamin Cuddiford and Sydney Fletcher were the only two survivors.[2]
Ghost ship
In 1880 local Shanklin fishermen reported seeing a fully rigged sailing ship sailing at speed off Sandown Bay, but as they approached it, it disappeared. In early 1934, Commander Lipscombe was on the conning tower of his Royal Navy submarine HMS Proteus when a sailing man-of-war suddenly appeared out of nowhere and almost collided with his boat.[3]
In May 1998 Prince Edward claimed to have seen the Eurydice while filming a television series on the Isle of Wight, as he was relating its story.[5]
Notes
| a | In Greek mythology, Eurydice was the wife of Orpheus. After she was killed by a snake he secured her release from the underworld, on the condition that he did not look back at her on their return to the world of the living. When he did, Eurydice disappeared.[1] |
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