Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - Losses of shipping and crews out of Penarth . . .

An all too familiar pattern of events relating to the fate of many ships and their crews is that on the 21st December 1884 the ‘County of Aberdeen’ sailed from Cardiff bound for Bombay but failed to arrive; she was never seen or heard of again.

	Then, her sister ship, the ‘County of Haddington’ left Penarth in 1881 with a cargo of coal, but returned for repairs after sustaining substantial damage during a severe storm in the Bristol Channel. The “Castleton” sailed from Penarth for St. Lucia in October 1886 and was lost with 23 crew. A formal enquiry was held in the following year. Penarth was deemed a port of Cardiff for many years. Accounts of the period indicate that ships often left the docks overloaded and, or, poorly trimmed. The unpredictable weather of the Bristol Channel, the many hidden rocks, mudflats, sandbanks and exceptional tidal flows caught mariners unaware.

Many ships were lost with all hands. The first 19th century loading regulation was introduced by the Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping in 1835, following discussions between ship-owners, shippers and underwriters. Lloyds recommended freeboards as a function of the depth of the hold at a standard rate of three inches per foot of depth. These recommendations were used extensively until 1880 and became known as "Lloyd's Rule".

With regard to the marking of marine hazards, the local shipping lanes had one of the highest densities of identification systems in the World, but despite this extensive system of lighthouses and buoys along the Welsh Coast, the Severn Sea and Bristol Channel, mortality was higher than occupations on-shore, including the mining and iron working industries. One contemporary report suggested that about a quarter of those who embarked on a life at sea also died at sea or on the rocks. See also The Lloyd's Register at Penarth Dock for a list of losses.