The SS Mount Ida was a cargo ship built in 1938 by William Hamilton & Co. Ltd of Glasgow. Launched in 1938 as Arcscott, she was renamed Mount Ida after being bought by the Atlanticos Steam Ship Company Ltd, of Athens, Greece. She was wrecked in 1939 after being in service for only about 18 months. Propulsion Mount Ida had eight corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of that heated two single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of . She had also an auxiliary boiler. The boilers fed a three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine rated at 380 nominal horsepower that was built by David Rowan & Co Ltd, Glasgow. Mount Idas service speed was about . Final voyage In the autumn of 1939 Mount Ida, carrying a cargo of grain and timber, and with a crew of 29, left Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, bound for the port of Leith, Scotland. On 9 October she was in the North Sea and close to the north-east coast of Norfolk, England. This is a particularly hazardous area, with many sand banks. Despite being equipped with direction finding equipment and an echo sounding device Mount Ida ran aground on a sandbank. At 0625 hrs the coastguard told the coxswain of the Cromer lifeboat, Henry Blogg, that the Mount Ida was aground and asked that the lifeboat be sent to assist her. Since the outbreak of the Second World War a month earlier, RNLI lifeboats had been under the control of the naval authorities, and this was only the second rescue effort by the Cromer lifeboat under this arrangement. The Cromer lifeboat H.F. Bailey was launched and set off towards Haisborough Sands, which is where Coxswain Blogg had been told the Mount Ida was aground. The lifeboat had been at sea for an hour when the coastguard informed Blogg by radio that Mount Ida was not on Haisborough Sands but was grounded further north-east, on Ower Bank. The H.F. Bailey crossed Leman Bank and reached the Mount Ida around 1230 hrs. By this time the ship's starboard lifeboat had been carried away, she was listing heavily to starboard and lying head on to the seas, and her position offered no lee for the lifeboat to come alongside. The H.F. Bailey made an attempt to throw a line to the stricken vessel but was twice struck by the heavy seas and flung back. Coxswain