Qualla: MV Cita https://qualla.com/mv-cita en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: MV Cita https://qualla.com/mv-cita MV Cita: Introduction https://qualla.com/mv-cita/ Just after three in the morning on 26 March 1997, the German-owned container ship MV Cita was steaming north-west from Southampton to Belfast in gale-force winds. The 93-metre vessel, registered in Antigua and crewed mainly by Polish sailors, was making good time across an unusually empty bridge. The watch-keeping officer had fallen asleep. The watch alarm, which should have woken him every several minutes, had been switched off. Cita drove straight onto the rocks at Newfoundland Point on the south coast of St Mary's, ripped open her hull, and within minutes was bleeding her cargo into the Atlantic. By dawn the islanders were on the beaches, watching containers from across the world wash up at their feet.

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/mv-cita-wp/gbge-mv-cita-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full MV Cita: A 3 AM Wake-Up Call https://qualla.com/mv-cita/ The St Mary's Lifeboat launched within an hour. A Westland Sea King helicopter scrambled from RNAS Culdrose on the Cornish mainland. The crew, mostly Polish, were lifted off the stricken vessel without serious injury and brought ashore. Later that afternoon they boarded the Scill...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/mv-cita-wp/gbge-mv-cita-a-3-am-wake-up-call.mp3 0:06 2 full MV Cita: Two Hundred Containers in the Atlantic https://qualla.com/mv-cita/ Cita was carrying 200 containers on a feeder run between major European ports. About twenty stayed on board after she sank. The rest tumbled into the sea and washed ashore across the Isles of Scilly or drifted away into the Celtic Sea, some travelling as far as the Cornish coast....

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/mv-cita-wp/gbge-mv-cita-two-hundred-containers-in-the-atlantic.mp3 0:06 3 full MV Cita: The Beachcombing of a Generation https://qualla.com/mv-cita/ Most of the islanders threw themselves into the clean-up. Cargo had to come off the rocks and out of the dune systems, and a great deal of it was simply too useful to leave to weather. Doors went into sheds. Plywood went into outbuildings. Tyres, computer mice, tobacco; everythin...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/mv-cita-wp/gbge-mv-cita-the-beachcombing-of-a-generation.mp3 0:06 4 full MV Cita: Why It Was Not the Torrey Canyon https://qualla.com/mv-cita/ The Isles of Scilly knew what a bad wreck could do. In 1967 the supertanker Torrey Canyon had grounded on the Seven Stones reef to the east-northeast of the archipelago and spilled 119,000 tonnes of crude oil, which the Royal Air Force eventually tried to bomb into burning, with ...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/mv-cita-wp/gbge-mv-cita-why-it-was-not-the-torrey-canyon.mp3 0:06 5 full MV Cita: The Wreck as Memory https://qualla.com/mv-cita/ The Cita wreck has become a local touchstone, a marker dividing the 1990s into before and after. It is the kind of event that is told as a comedy in the pub and a tragedy in maritime law. Islanders remember the days when the beach yielded a wardrobe of unworn clothes, when comput...

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]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/g/e/mv-cita-wp/gbge-mv-cita-the-wreck-as-memory.mp3 0:06 6 full