SS Benmohr at Prawle Point

The cargo steamship SS Benmohr ran aground on 25th February 1931 at the coastal headland of Prawle Point. Prawle Point means lookout hill and is the southernmost point of the county of Devon and famed for snagging many a passing vessel. The SS Benmohr was en route from Port Chalmers Dunedin in New Zealand on 5th January to Leith in Scotland in Devon carrying a cargo of wool to Dunkirk, Hull and London and had arrived home on 15th February 1931.

The forty-nine crewmembers were rescued by the steam tug ST Restorer using breeches buoy or rocket apparatus. SS Benmohr was under charter to George H. Scales Pacific Ltd. The company had been operating since 1897 and was originally set up to break the British shipping cartel as a protest by New Zealand farmers on South Island. Scales died in 1928 but was known for running the company on a shoestring budget and filling empty spaces on vessels to drive down the cost of export. Had George still been alive he would have probably been on tenterhooks. The Ben Line Steamers were based in Leith, north of Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth. In 1942 the SS Benmohr was torpedoed and sunk by German u-boat U-505.