Lost 1926 - Bermuda fishing boat with sails and a motor (Berg: a double-ended cedar ketch)
The Mussel was one of Bermuda's own working boats, a small fishing vessel with sails and a motor, owned by the Darrell Brothers of Warwick. On the morning of Sunday 7 February 1926 she left Hamilton for the fishing grounds on the Banks with three men aboard, and she was never seen again.
When she failed to return the Royal Gazette reported 'Three Fishermen Missing'. A northerly gale had blown up, and she was presumed to have been driven out to sea. The weather was so bad that the tug Baldrock could not go out to search; the naval wireless station asked passing ships to look out for her, and a rumour that the men had been picked up proved false. Nothing was ever found but a door believed to have come from the boat.
The three men lost were Augustus C. Philpott of Somerset, who left a widow and six children; Hanson DeShield of Somerset, who left a wife and child; and Charles Wellington Hinson of Devonshire, whose wife and son lived on Long Island in the United States. The Governor headed a public subscription for their families, and a charity football match was played in their aid.
Berg's 1991 dive guide, following Teddy Tucker's chart of Bermuda wrecks, lists a Mussel wrecked at the West End while returning from fishing. The contemporary reports show that she vanished at sea rather than on a reef, so there is no known wreck of the Mussel.
There is no known wreck of the Mussel: she disappeared at sea in 1926. Berg (1991) records remains under her name on a sand bottom in about 25 ft at the West End, but whatever wreck divers call the Mussel is unidentified.