But it was too early to thank the Divine. As the Young Maid was swept up to the top of the next wave, the Lowenek was in the deep gully below it. Lowenek’s skipper, Nathaniel King, known locally as Grandfather King, was the first to sense impending danger and the only fisherman on his family’s lugger to see the Young Maid tossed off the wave to plunge down on top of them.

His shout of ‘Look out!’ had barely left his thin, cracked lips when forty feet of heavy timber, masts, yards and sails and several stone of fish crashed down, snuffing out life, tearing off limbs and almost cleaving Lowenek in two. The noise was deafening over the turbulent waters. The fishwives paused in their clanging at that same moment, as though premonition of tragedy had stilled their hands.

At his shout Grandfather King had risen to his feet. He was swept overboard with the speed and grace of a swooping sea bird, hitting the cold, inky-black water with no more than a dull splash. He had no regrets at facing death now. Better to die at sea as a working fisherman than to end up as a slinger, left by old age and infirmity to watch on shore with the women and children for the return of the fleet.

His two sons, Jonathan, and Solomon with his left arm ripped off, were thrown out of their boats immediately after him. The waves swept them quickly away into the fog, their cries growing fainter and fainter until they were no longer heard. Both men fought for their lives, both lost them, not content as their father was to leave their fate to the elements and their Maker.

Terror and confusion possessed the survivors on the Young Maid as it rocked crazily on the rushing sea. Clinging to the mast after a desperate attempt to clutch at Jonathan King’s body, Samuel Drannock was brought forcefully to his knees. When he regained his feet the lugger was steadying itself, the sea was a little less angry, the waves had lost some of their awesome strength. Although grateful to have a stable albeit damaged boat under his feet, Samuel’s horror did not lessen. His inbred Cornish superstition rose to the fore at the uncanny changes in the weather and the sea.

‘We’ll pay for this, boy,’ he hissed to his son who was looking at him anxiously from his position at the bow.

‘What’s that?’ Bartholomew shouted above the moans and exclamations of the other survivors on the Young Maid. He saw with despair that nearly all their catch had been lost overboard in the collision. Five days’ tedious labour and sweat all for nothing. Bartholomew wiped blood off his chin where it had struck the bottom of the boat. Furious at what had happened, he swore profusely and for once did not care if his dour father heard every oath.