South Shields, Jolly Girls

A motor vessel of 483 tons. Struck a mine in December 1940. She was carrying a cargo a submarine cable. N55 00 29 W001 23 08. The Cullercoats life boat was called out to a spot 3/4 mile east of the Tyne piers. The wreck has been bought by W.G.P. Marine (Collings). Steel, 483-ton motor vessel, registered at Harwich, 48.15m long, 8.22m beam, 2.59m draught. She was built in 1936 by Smith’s Dock Co. Ltd at South Bank, Middlesbrough and owned by Messrs F.W. Horlock’s Ocean Transport Co. Ltd. Her single screw was powered by a four-cylinder oil engine 2S CSA. Her aft machinery was built by Atlas Diesel A/B at Stockholm. She had a cruiser-stern, one deck, three watertight bulkheads and a superstructure consisting of a 29.5m quarter-deck, a 3.3m bridge-deck and a 6.4m forecastle.
The Jolly Girls was requisitioned by the government and was on passage from London to Rosyth on 2 December 1940, with a crew of eight, two DEMS gunners and a 540-ton of copper submarine cable when she detonated a German-laid mine, she foundered after twenty minutes.

As of 2001, the wreck has never been found by divers, despite extensive searches. The wreck is said to be eighteen cables (just over two miles) out and more or less east of the North Tyne pier, lying in a depth of around 29.3m on a seabed of sand and stone. There is a wreck on the Admiralty charts in that approximate location, marked as ‘position approximate’.

It is possible that she lies very close to the wreck of the Nyula (HER 12954)

Grid reference conversion made 06.12.2010 with http://gps.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/etrs89geo_natgrid.asp with Lat/Long referenced as
N 55 00 26 W 01 22 31