Rescue and Salvage.

The stricken Louis Shied was within a few yards of the Links Hotel, now a block of flats called Links Court. The disaster was witnessed by Jack Jarvis, the former cox'n of the old Hope Cove lifeboat and immediately called the Salcombe lifeboat. Enormous seas gave the lifeboat a hellish journey round the Bolt and found the Louis two hours later.

It was when the lifeboat came alongside, rising and falling 20ft with the waves, that Cox'n Eddie Distin found he was rescuing not one crew, but two. All the first 40 men to jump aboard came from the Tajandoen where they were landed at Hope Cove. The lifeboat made two trips and local fishermen dared enormous waves to set up a ferry service from lifeboat to shore. When the Salcombe boat went back a third time, the Louis had been moved by wind, sea and the rising tide. She was now broadside under the cliffs and impossible to approach from the sea.

A rocket apparatus was set up by the coastguards on the cliff overlooking her and the team soon had a line aboard. All the remaining crew came off safely this way. Eddie Distin was awarded the RNLI silver medal award for the rescue and his crew each received the bronze.

Despite many attempts to float her the Louis never moved again. The hides and tobacco were salvaged but the grain was slowly washed out of her by the tides. All further attempts of salvage were abandoned in 1940 after southerly gales broke her in two. In 1942 her bow collapsed and to help the war effort, metal was cut from her to be reused. An aerial ropeway was set up from the cliffs, driven by a traction engine to bring the metal off her.

The Louis was apparently sold for £400 after the war when more metal was salvaged from her. We have found no record of who that new owner was in our attempt to locate and contact them. The very broken wreck now lies in 10 meters of water and parts of her structure can be seen at low water.

Many thanks to Kendall McDonald of Thurleston for giving Two Thirds Blue SAC permission to use his accounts of the Louis' history and photos he had from his grandfather.