Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - More storms and their effects . . .

Some of the poor fellows also came to Cardiff by rail during the day, and others went to the Seamen's Home. There have been no fatalities which came under our notice, and great praise is undoubtedly due to Captain Cullum and the coastguardsmen under his control, for their prompt and energetic use of the rocket apparatus by which many lives were saved. The same apparatus was again in use on Wednesday afternoon. Among the vessels riding in the roads is one totally dismasted, only the hull being visible.

Nearly all the vessels on shore are damaged considerably by "bumping", and timber is continually being washed ashore. At a certain hour of the day something else also landed, which was soon found by the thirsty landsmen to be worth partaking of, and the barrel - for such as it was - was unceremoniously tapped, and its contents - good sound clarets heartily welcome! Happily there seems no probability at present, of further wrecks, as the gale is diminishing in force.' - Cardiff Times [019] [361] 22nd January 1881.

Further along the coast at Lavernock there was a problem as The Graphic magazine illustrates in its pages. [000] [243]

• September 1884 - Relic of a Great Storm in the Bristol Channel. - 'The great easterly gale of the 28th January, 1880, which swept the Bristol Channel, and in which many vessels were wrecked in Penarth Roads, will long be remembered. One of the vessels, the 'Alexandre,' of St. Malo, with a cargo of pitwood from Bordeaux for Cardiff, was in Penarth Roads waiting her turn to dock, when during the storm, she fouled several vessels, had her masts and rudder carried away, and was driven helplessly down Channel. Attempts were made to save her, and Captain Sadler, in the 'Lord Derby,' had her in tow, but the ropes parted again and again. The French captain would not leave his vessel, neither would the crew, although Captain Sadler repeatedly offered to take them off. No vestige of the vessel or the bodies of any of the crew was afterwards found until Wednesday last, When Captain John Phillips, of the Cardiff steam tug 'Primrose,'