The wreck site of the CYPRIAN was reported to the UKHO in 1970 (by T. Pritchard) as lying in 20-30ft of water, with the boilers still standing proud of the seabed and intact. Some prior salvage was noted. In 1994 the wreck was reported (by G. Flint) to stand 2.5m high. The wreck was not located in the most recent UKHO survey in 2016. The ship's bell has been recovered and items from the CYPRIAN can be seen in the Nefyn Maritime Museum.
Event and Historical Information:
The CYPRIAN (alt. CYPRYAN) was a iron-hulled screw-steamer built in 1874 at Liverpool by Bowdler, Chaffer and Co. (Official No. 70873, Yard No. 109). The vessel was 1433gt, 940nt, 292.2ft length, 30.1ft breadth, 22.2ft depth. It was powered by a 2-cylinder compound engine (170 rhp) with two boilers, a single shaft and single screw. At time of loss, the vessel was owned by SS Cyprian Company Ltd and was registered at Liverpool.
The CYPRIAN left Liverpool at 2pm on 13 October 1881 and, under the command of captain John Alexander Strachan, was on passage to Genoa. The ship ran into a northwesterly gale in Caernarfon bay. During the night, one of the lower tubes of her starboard boiler burst, but using the other boiler, the crew kept up a head of steam so that the ship could be kept head to the wind. At 8.30am on 14 October 1881, the ship's steering gear failed, leaving the vessel entirely reliant on the single engine for any form of manoeuvring capability. Shortly after water from the starboard boiler put out the fire in the port boiler, and the ship was left without power being driven towards the shore. At 3pm after taking soundings, the port anchor was dropped in 15 fathoms, but a failure of the windlass brake caused all the chain to run out. When the starboard anchor was dropped and the brake applied, the chain broke. As a consequence the ship went onshore 2 miles southwest of Porthdinllaen on Gwmister Point. The crew were at their lifeboat stations when the captain noticed a young stowaway named Khalan without a lifejacket. The captain heroically passed his own lifejacket to the stowaway, who was one of the eight survivors. The captain and 18 other members of the crew drowned. The captain's body was taken to Liverpool for burial. The others were interred within Edern churchyard. At the enquiry into why the Porthdinlaen lifeboat had not gone to the ship's assistance, 10 local master mariners declared that nothing could have been done for the CYPRIAN and that people onshore had believed the ship to be abandoned. The lifeboat's coxswain Hugh Davies had called out the coastguard life-saving rocket apparatus crew, but when they arrived the CYPRIAN was breaking up.
Sources include:
Board of Trade Inquiry 1156, 12-16 November 1881, Chancery Court, St George's Hall, Liverpool
Gater, D, 1992, Historic Shipwrecks of Wales, pg74-6
Gwynedd Archive Service XM/2686/4
Larn and Larn Shipwreck Database 2002
Liverpool Mercury, 15 November 1881, issue 10561
Liverpool Mercury, 16 November 1881, issue 10562
Liverpool Mercury, 17 November 1881, issue 10563
Lloyds Register of British and Foreign Shipping, 1 July 1880 - 30 June 1881, number 1554 in C
Receiver of Wreck Droits Database August 2007 RCIM6/2/5
https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?12709
Wynne-Jones, I, 2001, Shipwrecks of North Wales, 4ed, pg38
J. Whitewright, RCAHMW, July 2025.