We passed the wreck on our holiday last week. The sight of it in the setting sun piqued my curiosity.
How did the cement ship go down?. And what happened to the people aboard.

Our lovely hosts sent us a link about the history of the area including the story about the wreck .
It was an interesting read.
I have chosen to focus the story on the shipwreck itself. The narrative is sober, and that only seems to heighten the drama.

But I am warning you. This is what is called a longread:

On December 29th, 1947, the tugboat S/S Castor left Hundested Harbor with the barge ‘Brøns Odde’ of Copenhagen towards Randers.
The barge was unusual while it was built of reinforced concrete in 1944 and not as usual of steel and iron or wood. It was therefore heavy and difficult to handle. The barge was ballasted according to the regulations for towing over open sea for such a vessel.
S/S Castor had a crew of 4 and on the barge ‘Brøns Odde’ there were 2 men for maneuvering and handling the tow rope.

The weather was nice and the sea was calm. When they were clear of Hesselø, the weather changed very quickly. It blew up into a northerly blizzard and visibility dropped to zero.
It was precisely in this difficult situation that the tow line snapped. The barge ‘Brøns Odde’ went into operation, and disappeared in the thickening snow.

As the S/S Castor had no radar and no radio, all communication between the two vessels was lost.
There was a temporary clearing in the weather, and from S/S Castor they were lucky enough to spot ‘Brøns Odde’, and ascertain that it had dropped its anchor.

S/S Castor therefore sailed as close to the barge as they dared, and remained there while they waited for an improvement in the weather and, in particular, for the high and violent waves to subside.
Instead of settling down, the storm increased in strength and ‘Brøns Odde’s’ anchor could not hold it in position. The barge drifted off in a south-westerly direction with its anchor dragging across the seabed.
Due to the depth conditions and the strong current and sea, S/S Castor did not dare to follow. The barge therefore disappeared in the darkness and new snow.

When it dawned the next day, the S/S Castor immediately began searching for her missing tow, and it didn’t take long to find it.
The barge was stranded at Yderby Lyng on the east side of Sjællands Odde, a peninsula on the northwest coast of Zealand.
S/S Castor approached cautiously ‘Brøns Odde’, but getting all the way in was not possible.

When the Master of S/S Castor had formed an overview of the situation, he sailed Castor to Odden Havn, where a solid dinghy was hired, and informed the shipping company and authorities about what had happened. The S/S Castor then sailed with the hired dinghy in tow to the beaching site where the tug anchored and then established a connection with ‘Brøns Odde’ via the dinghy as soon as the weather permitted. There was no risk for the two crew members on the barge.

In the following days the lake was still strong and caused swells around ‘Brøns Odde’ as when the wind and current changed direction and began to work on the land, causing the barge to leak. Sea and current also prevented S/S Castor from trying to pull ‘Brøns Odde’ off the ground. Moreover, local fishermen and skippers estimated that the S/S Castor was too weak to carry out the towing work, and in that the locals were right.

The shipowners, the crew of both S/S Castor and ‘Brøns Odde’ and some men the shipowners had brought from Copenhagen, worked eagerly, partly to seal ‘Brøns Odde’, partly to pump it bilge. Here again, it proved very difficult to seal a leak in a vessel that was built of reinforced concrete.
On 6 January 1948 the S/S Castor was moored for the night and with a lighthouse along the side of ‘Brøns Odde’, as it had been shown by soldering that the S/S Castor could well float to the outside, but with only 1 meter of water under the keel, a situation that was to become the indirect cause of S/S Castor’s sinking.
A storm now arose from the west which stirred the sea, and great waves came against the two vessels.
The driver of S/S Castor had been immediately reprimanded by the watchman and realized the acute danger the tow steamer was in.

The crew of S/S Castor quickly got the steam up and cast off from ‘Brøns Odde’ and steered out towards the open sea, to get clear of the now dangerous coast. At first it seemed that the S/S Castor would succeed in reaching deep water and riding out the storm from there. BUT?

Now the consequences of the fact that the S/S Castor had ventured into too shallow water became apparent. A few strong shocks from below up through the steamer told the crew with all desirable clarity that S/S Castor’s bottom had hit one or more large rocks. But still the steamer stood outwards with all the power that the machine could produce.

S/S Castor had received her fatal wound, although there were no more collisions with large rocks on the seabed, the ship had sprung a leak and the water rose rapidly in the engine room. S/S Castor’s Master let two men pump continuously, but the water ingress continued with ever-increasing force.

The engineer had to leave the combined engine and boiler room at the same time as the water reached the fire under the boiler and extinguished it.
When the escaping engineer came on deck and reported to the Master, it was clear to him that the S/S Castor was going to sink, no matter what was done to prevent it.
It was therefore about utilizing the steam that was left on the boiler, because the Machinist had not stopped the machine when he rescued himself from the engine room.

Resolutely, S/S Castor’s Master turned his ship towards land again, to try to sail it as far ashore, and as close to the shore as he could with the remaining steam in the boiler.
But the S/S Castor did not make it far. When the Engineer had to leave his engine room, S/S Castor had arrived approx. 900 meters from the coast, and here the ship then turned around, but only reached a distance of approx. 55o meters from the shore when the machine stalled for lack of steam and the S/S Castor sank deeper and deeper into the water playing at deck level.

At the same time, the storm had dropped to a stiff gale, and turned to the north-east, which certainly did not benefit the landing attempt.
It was at the last minute that the crew of the S/S Castor pulled the hired dinghy into the side of the tug and stepped into the dinghy and cut the tow rope to the S/S Castor.
A few minutes later, the S/S Castor went to the bottom in approx. 8 meter depth. The crew managed to sail the dinghy into Brøns Odde and got aboard it with difficulty, thus saving their lives.

There was a terrible surf on the coast, which of course would be dangerous to pass in the dinghy, as the shipwrecked quickly got proof of, as the dinghy broke free from its mooring at Brøns Odde and drifted into the surf, where it was immediately transformed into stick fires .
The shipwrecked were forced to stay on board the barge and wait for help from shore when tomorrow dawned.

The authorities ashore were well aware that something could have happened out at the stranded ‘Brøns Odde’ during the night of the storm. They did not fear the heavy cement laths, they believed that it would take more than a storm to destroy Brøns Odde’s solid cement construction, and to this day, it can be ascertained to be absolutely correct. Because Brøns Odde still lies where it laid to rest on the 30th. December 1947.

On the other hand, the S/S Castor and its crew were feared to the highest degree, because in contrast to the heavy cement lath, the S/S Castor was to a large extent comparable to a shuttlecock with which anything could very easily happen when it dared to go all the way into shallow water in such an unstable area in terms of weather and sea as was the case at Gnibenkrogen, where no one with local knowledge of the waters could dream of dropping anchor.

As soon as it was daylight again on the morning of January 6, 1948, many eyes and binoculars were directed towards the stranding site where ‘Brøns Odde’ lay just as it had the day before, but S/S Castor was gone and the sea empty. What had become of the S/S Castor, one asked themselves on land?

They did not remain in uncertainty for long, because help was signaled from ‘Brøns Odde’. The lifeboat from Yderby then went out to the wrecked barge, and took all five men on board and sailed them into Odden Havn to safety.