El Gran Grifón
Marker: recorded wreck position (Date not recorded).
Key facts
| Name | El Gran Grifón | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Ship type | ship, shipwreck | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Grounding or wreck on rocks | Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence |
| Nationality / flag | Spain | Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country |
| Operator | Spanish Navy | Wikidata P137 operator |
| Sea / ocean | North Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Scotland | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 44 km from land |
| Position | 59.5159, -1.6277 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
El Gran Grifón was the flagship of the Spanish Armada's supply squadron of Baltic hulks (built in and chartered from the City of Rostock, in modern-day Germany); see list of ships of the Spanish Armada. She was shipwrecked on Fair Isle, Shetland, Scotland, on 27 September 1588.
The 650-ton 38-gun ship sailed under the command and section flag of Juan Gómez de Medina and not – as often quoted – under the command of Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán el Bueno, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, Admiral of Spain and commanding officer of the Armada.
She had been attacked by the Revenge and badly damaged right in the first meeting in the Channel, but managed somehow to escape into the open North Sea where she later met the rest of the beaten Armada. Because of leaks she had to run before the wind up the east coast of Britain. However, an unusually strong storm and the tides forced the ships to cross between Norway and the Northern Isles for about a week before they reached the Atlantic. Having the coast of Ireland nearly in sight, many ships were thrown back north by another storm.
Location
- Recorded position: 59.5159, -1.6277 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: North Sea
- Nearest coast: Scotland
Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article El Gran Grifón (revision 1337096205), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- SS The Ramsey 15 km
- HMS Goldfinch 50 km
- HMS Cheerful 64 km
- RMS Oceanic 70 km
- Queen of Sweden 75 km
- Bourbon Dolphin 2007 · 81 km
Browse more: UK & Ireland wrecks · wrecks off Scotland · North Sea