HMS Racer aground on Ryde Sands. Illustration for The Illustrated London News, 23 September 1871.<br><p><br>
THE STRANDING OF H.M.S. RACER. The naval training-ship Racer, which ran aground on Ryde Sands, a quarter of a mile east of the head of Ryde Harbour Pier, at half-past eleven in the morning on Monday week, was towed off at eight o'clock in the evening by a Portsmouth steam-tug. The way in which she was stranded is worthy of remark. She had sailed past Ryde Pier from the westward. There was only a very slight breeze blowing from a northerly direction, and she had spread every inch of available canvas, and was making the best of what little wind there was, sailing very free. The tide was ebbing rapidly. After passing the pier she fell in with a strong current running in the same direction as the wind was blowing, and drifted on the sand, taking the ground about midway between the pier and the Noman Fort. Here she stuck tight in spite of every effort made by two of the steamers of the Portsmouth and Ryde Company to get her off. She lay over very much on the port side, and, being an old ship, it was feared she might be strained. As the tide came in she gradually righted herself, and was at length towed off. She was taken into Portsmouth, to be overhauled and inspected. We are indebted for the sketch from which our Illustration is drawn to a gentleman on board the cutter-yacht Clutha, of the Royal Yacht Squadron at Ryde. It shows the Racer as she lay aground, with the steam-tug Grinder preparing to tow her off the sandbank.
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Grinder, a wooden paddle tug, of 332 tons, was launched in 1868 and sold in 1919.
<bdi><a href="https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q21456707" class="extiw" title="d:Q21456707"><span title="marine artist">Edwin Weedon</span></a>
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23 September 1871<div style="display: none;">date QS:P571,+1871-09-23T00:00:00Z/11</div>
The Illustrated London News