Walking along the Naze beach in 1966 at this time of year you would have very likely come across some piles of coal or coke washed up on the tide.

A few weeks earlier the cargo vessel Ypapanti had run aground 15 miles off the Naze on the shallow stretch of sea called the Long Sands Head.

The vessel was wrecked but it carried coal and coke and some timber.

Many locals descended onto the beach as each tide brought fresh salvage and it is said that a lot of garden sheds and beach huts were built later that year from salvaged wood and some still stand today.

Our local lifeboat the Edian Courtauld was in action rescuing the crew of the stricken vessel. The RNLI Bronze Medal was awarded to Coxswain Frank Bloom and the thanks of the RNLI Institution inscribed on Vellum was accorded to the other nine members of the crew in recognition of the courage determination and good seamanship displayed.

The lifeboat stood by in a strong north-north-westerly wind, squalls and rough seas with a heavy ground swell on November 17, November 1966, and subsequently rescued all 16 members of her crew.

The Ypapanti was originally called SS Winsor and was a 2,831 GRT collier launched at Burntisland in May 1942.

She was owned by The Gas Light and Coke Company, which was a company that made and supplied coal gas and coke. It is identified as the original company from which British Gas plc is descended.

The company was founded by Frederick Winsor, who was originally from Germany, and incorporated by Royal Charter in 1812 under the seal of King George III.

It was the first company set up to supply London with coal gas, and operated the first gas works in the United Kingdom which was also the world’s first public gas works.

The company had a large and diverse transport fleet, including ships, barges and railway wagons and locomotives to bring coal into the gasworks and take coke and by-products out, plus horse-drawn and later motorised transport for local delivery and maintenance.

She passed to North Thames Gas Board upon nationalisation in 1949.

In 1964, she was sold to new owners who renamed her Ypapanti and registered her in Panama.