Site Record

The wreck had a least depth by echosounder of 11.6m in a general depth of 13.6m. The site registers a magnetic anomaly, has a length of 20m, a width of 4m, and lies orientated north-south. The wreck was salvaged in 1987, but some of the cargo remains within the hull held fast in concretion. Twenty broken plates and bronze several bronze rivets have been recovered and reported to the Receiver of Wreck.

Event and Historical Information:
The OCEAN MONARCH was a wooden sailing barque built by D McKay. Sources differ with regard to whether the vessel was registered at New York or Boston. Technical and configuration specifications are given as 130tons; 178ft length x 40ft breadth x 26ft depth. On 24 August 1848, the ship was on passage from Liverpool to Boston with 32 first and second class cabin passengers, 322 emigrants, and 42 crewmembers on board. At time of loss, the vessel was owned by E Train & Co operating as the White Diamond Line. The ship was 6m off the Great Orme at around 12noon, when smoke was detected in the main cabin from the aft state rooms. The ship was soon engulfed in flames. It was anchored and being head on to the wind kept the flames away from the bow. Many of the passengers took refuge forward, in the foremast rigging and on the job boom until this burnt through and fell into the sea. The first on the scene was the QUEEN OF THE OCEAN, a yacht owned by Thomas Littlegate, Commodore of the Royal Mersey Yacht Club, on its way back from a regatta at Beaumaris. It picked up 32 survivors. The yacht was joined by the Brazilian navy steam frigate ALFONSO which had just been completed at Birkenhead; the paddle steamer PRINCE OF WALES belonging to the City of Dublin Steam Packet Co; and the outward-bound New York packet ship NEW WORLD. The boats from the ALFONSO took off 156. The ship blazed for 24 hours until the water line was reached and then it sank by the stern. The ship's scorched figurehead drifted ashore a few days later at Rhos-on-Sea. One hundred and seventy-eight emigrants died.

Sources include:
Gater, D, 1992, Historic Shipwrecks of Wales, pg42
Larn and Larn Shipwreck Database 2002
Receiver of Wreck Droits Database 2007, RCIM6/2/5
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, 4 ed, p124-6

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, August 2008.