The oceans around the southern tip of South America are noted for violent storms such as those which disabled the Great Britain in 1886. During two seasons of filming the salvage, Marion and Tony Morrison recorded local memories of sailing days in the Falkland Islands / Malvinas. This short account of the 'Thetis gale' is from Jim Peck, who was living on the isolated Pebble Island in the far west of the group. Jim was born on 'Pebble' and grew up in Stanley when the story of the gale was fresh in everyone's mind. The Thetis was a 305 ton steel hulled sailing barque owned by the Falkand Islands Company. Each year the Thetis made a journey to England though it was used mainly for carrying supplies to the many small islands and collecting wool from the sheep stations. The ship set out from Port Stanley on July 27th 1901 to take cargo including a large metal sheep dip to the settlement of Salvador on the northern coast of East Falkland. A violent storm hit the island on August 3rd and the Thetis never arrived at her destination. Jim Peck describes how two Pebble Islanders were lost and the only signs of the Thetis were bits of flotsam left on the wild Falkland beaches.