The wreck is very broken up with wreckage lying scattered along the foreshore just below the coastguard station. At low tide, part of the bow section dries out in a small inlet. Part of a tubular mast and an anchor cable recognisable features that remain underwater.

Event and Historical Information:
The HINDLEA was a steel-hulled motor vessel built in 1941 at Hessle. Technical and configuration specifications are given as 506gt,402nt; screw propulsion powered by an oil engine. At time of loss, 27 October 1959, the vessel was registered at Cardiff and was on passage from Manchester to Newport in ballast. The HINDLEA had taken shelter from a southwesterly gale in Dulas Bay. The gale changed to a northerly direction and increased in severity bringing with it hurricane force gusts of wind (up to 104mph). The waves had risen to 25ft or 60ft (sources differ). The HINDLEA had attempted to reach open sea, but could make no headway and was eventually forced to anchor. The ship began to roll violently attached to the seabed by only one anchor cable and with her propeller racing more out of the water in an attempt to keep the bow into the wind and waves. Inevitably the anchor began to drag and the ship was force closer and closer onshore. The captain delayed giving the order to abandon ship for an hour and a half until the ship was only some 200m from the shore. At 12.11pm Seaford Radio received the ship's distress call saying that assistance was required as the ship was dragging its anchor. Forty-five minutes later the Moelfre Reserve lifeboat EDMUND & MARY ROBINSON was alongside. On its first attempt to get alongside under the ship's port quarter, the lifeboat was laid over on its beam ends with its mast was underwater. On the second attempt, the lifeboat was thrown against the side of the ship. However the coxswain took the lifeboat in another eight times allowing a member of the HINDLEA's crew to jump to safety each time. The HINDLEA was hurled against the cliffs and broken in two. Of the lifeboat's crew, coxswain Dick Evans received the RNLI gold medal, the mechanic Evan Owen a silver medal, and the three other crew members bronze medals.

Sources include:

Gater, D, 1992, Historic Shipwrecks of Wales, pp.127-8
Larn and Larn Shipwreck Database 2002
Lloyd's Register Casualty Returns, 1 October - 31 December 1959, p.30
MV Hindlea, Wreck Site EU
UK Hydrographic Office Wrecks and Obstructions Database. ? Crown Copyright and database rights. Reproduced by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office and the UK Hydrographic Office (www.ukho.gov.uk)
Wynne-Jones, I, 2001, Shipwrecks of North Wales, pp.83-4

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, June 2008.

This record was enhanced in 2020 with funding from Lloyd's Register Foundation as part of the project ‘Making the Link: Lloyd's Register and the National Monuments Record of Wales’. Visit Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage and Education Centre for more resources.