Stories

On January 31, 1903, the steamer Avona ran aground near Fjand in high winds, southerly currents and rough seas. The rocket apparatus from Thorsminde Rescue Station was quickly brought to the site, but the ship could not be reached. Rescuers therefore awaited the lifeboat from Vedersø Rescue Station, 10 kilometres away. It was not possible to get the Thorsminde Rescue Station's boat to the site.

Meanwhile, Avona's crew lost patience and boarded the ship's own lifeboats. About the worst thing that could happen! Rescue crews could do nothing but stand powerless, listening to the screams from the sea as the boats capsized and disappeared into the waves.

Over the course of the night, all 24 crew members drifted ashore. The dead were put on biers in the barn at Laust Bjerre’s shore officer’s estate. 

On board was one Dane, the ship's boy Svend Simeon Nielsen. A local man, Christian Gadegård Jensen, recounts his meeting with the boy's father: "The father of the deceased boy came [...] over to find his boy's body between the others, and it was touching to witness him coming into the barn where the bodies were placed and recognising his boy among them. There were not many dry eyes when he took his son's cold hand in his and, with tearful eyes said, ‘Yes, you got your way my son’."

The ship’s owner arrived to deal with the aftermath of the stranded boat. He wrote in Laust and An Bjerre’s Guest book: "No description suffices, one must come here and see it to understand, and leave the Bjergehuse region with lasting impressions of the nature and the people here. It fills my heart with sorrow to know that they all might have been saved from Avona to enjoy the same Warmth and Hospitality as I, the undersigned owner of the ship". (April 8, 1903, Lorentz W. Hansen)

Following Avona's stranding, the decision was made to erect Lyngvig lighthouse, so that the western coast would be illuminated by three spheres of light. The lighthouse was completed in 1906.