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What is recorded here

The requisitioned drifter Boy Andrew collided with the steamship St Rognvald in the Firth of Forth on 9 November 1941 and sank with all hands. At least eight dead are named in the patrol-service memorial, while the exact full total remains unclear. The seabed identity is recorded as possible.

The vessel and voyage

The vessel was launched at Aberdeen in 1918 as the Admiralty drifter Sunburst and became Boy Andrew in 1923. She was a 97-ton steam fishing drifter and won a major herring-fishing trophy in 1936. Requisitioned again in 1940, she served as a naval auxiliary patrol vessel in the Firth of Forth.

How it was lost

On 9 November 1941 Boy Andrew collided with the steamship St Rognvald in the Firth of Forth. Later court reporting described St Rognvald as the overtaking ship and the drifter as lost with all hands. The collision, not enemy action, destroyed her.

Deaths and survival

Nobody aboard Boy Andrew survived. The patrol-service memorial names at least eight: Alfred Samuel Rix Gray, William Albert Hilder, Everett John Hughes, James William Kenny, Alexander McIntosh, Geoffrey Pickering, Maurice William Henry Robertson and Thomas Butters Watson. Other family evidence names Fred Goodwin, so the total was at least nine; a complete final count is not secure in the checked material.

What remains

A wreck contact in the Forth is charted as possibly Boy Andrew. Its position fits the broad loss area, but the qualifier matters because a busy estuary holds many wrecks. The point should be treated as a likely lead until identifying machinery, measurements or survey evidence settle it.

Why it mattered

Boy Andrew had lived three lives: Admiralty drifter, successful fishing vessel and wartime patrol craft. Its loss carried fishermen and naval reservists from several communities into one accidental disaster. The later collision case also preserved how the ships met, adding responsibility and human names to what otherwise looks like a small anonymous wreck point.