HMT Tranquil – FY 920 (1942)

HMT Tranquil began life as the steam trawler Good Luck, built in 1912 by Cook, Welton & Gemmell Ltd at Beverley, yard number 249. She was a steel screw trawler of 294 gross tons, measuring about 39.6 metres long with a 7.2 metre beam, powered by an Amos & Smith triple-expansion engine rated at 87 NHP. First registered at Hull as H497, she later moved to Fleetwood as FD425 and took the name Tranquil. She had already served once in war, requisitioned in April 1915 as a minesweeper and escort vessel, before returning to fishing after the First World War. History clearly saw a hardworking trawler and thought, “You again.”

Requisitioned again on 28 April 1940, Tranquil became Royal Navy minesweeper FY 920. After repairs at Tilbury, she left dock on 14 June 1942, but two days later, on 16 June 1942, she sank following a collision off Deal, Kent. At least one crewman is specifically recorded as lost: Seaman Kenneth James Pentreath, Royal Naval Patrol Service, aged 21, who drowned on active service. For divers, Tranquil is one of those quietly powerful Channel wrecks: a fishing boat turned wartime minesweeper, twice taken into naval service, lost close to the Dover approaches in the middle of Britain’s coastal war. Small ship, hard life, proper story.