Family memory
The inherited fragment
A father survived a sinking, lost his best friend, and carried the memory quietly for more than half a century.
Chapter 01 · Family memory · Research beginning
Lines Cast from the Past
Before the Arctic Viking became an inquiry file, a wreck site, or a chapter in Hull's fishing history, it was a name heard inside a family: a ship, a father who survived, and a best friend who did not come home.
The first telling
A name heard before it could be understood
The story began, not in an archive, but in a passing family remark. The name Arctic Viking was first heard when the author was very young, spoken quietly by an auntie as something already known by the adults: his dad had once survived a sinking at sea and had lost his best friend in the process.
At that age, the meaning of it could not land. There was no clear picture of a deep-sea trawler, no sense of St Andrew's Dock, no understanding of what it meant for a Hull fisherman to stand at the helm while a ship rolled over in heavy seas. It was simply a fragment of family history: Dad had been on a trawler, the trawler sank, and a friend called John was lost.
David Cressey did not turn the memory into a family story. When asked, he kept the answer short. The ship sank in heavy seas. He was on the bridge. He was at the helm. A big wave hit. Then the subject closed again.
That silence is part of the story. The Arctic Viking was not only an event from 18 October 1961; it was something carried in the body and in the house afterwards, mostly unspoken. The research that became this site began in the space left by that silence.
The ship sank in heavy seas. He was on the bridge. He was at the helm. A big wave hit. For years, that was almost all the family was given. Family memory recorded in the Arctic Viking research notes
A young man from a fishing family
David Cressey was twenty-five when the Arctic Viking capsized. The crew research notes record him as a spare hand and helmsman, born in Beverley on 2 May 1936 and living at 579 Anlaby Road, Hull. By modern eyes he was a young man, but by the standards of Hull's deep-sea fishing world he was already experienced.
He came from a long family line shaped by the sea. The family notes describe his father, grandfather and great-grandfather as fishermen, with his father remembered as a skipper and war hero. The older generations had worked in a world where trawlers could become minesweepers, patrol vessels or submarine hunters, and where fishing skill and wartime service often sat close together.
David's own route carried that same mixture of service and sea. At fifteen he went to nautical school at Blyth Wellesley. At seventeen he joined the Royal Navy and trained at HMS Collingwood. He later served in the Army, including time connected in the notes with the East Yorkshire Regiment, the West Yorkshire Regiment and overseas postings. After service, he returned to fishing.
By September 1961, he was working toward the next step. The notes say he was an experienced deckhand and needed only a few more weeks at sea before training for his bosun's ticket. The Arctic Viking was not a sentimental choice. It was a berth, and in Hull's fishing industry a berth mattered.
17 September 1961
A berth from St Andrew's Dock
On 17 September 1961, David Cressey made his way to St Andrew's Dock to join the crew of the Arctic Viking. She was bound for a three-week fishing trip off the coast of Norway, one more voyage in the regular rhythm of Hull's distant-water fleet.
This was David's first trip on the Viking. The notes describe her as a Boyd Line vessel with a hard reputation: a ship some men were not keen to sail on, remembered for her awkward post-war rebuild, her oversized funnel and her large square bridge. She had history behind her. Built as Arctic Pioneer, she had survived wartime service, sinking, salvage and rebuilding before taking the name Arctic Viking.
That reputation did not make the decision simple, but it did not stop men signing on either. Fishing work was competitive. A man could not always be choosy, and a successful voyage could mean a good pay packet. The old phrase in the notes is sharp because it is true to the working culture: come home with a full haul and a fisherman might briefly be a "three-day millionaire."
In that sense, the Arctic Viking began this chapter as a working ship, not yet a tragedy. She was a place of wages, risk, skill and ordinary calculation. Men went aboard because that was the work.
The friend at the heart of the silence
The name inside David's silence was John Robinson, known as Johnny. The crew notes describe him as a deckhand or fireman, aged twenty-three, from 22 Foston Grove, Preston Road, Hull. He was one of the five men lost when the Arctic Viking went down.
For the family, Johnny was not simply a name in a crew list. He was David's close friend and Army buddy, a connection that began before the Arctic Viking and made the loss more personal. Only much later did the family learn that David had seen him during the final moments. The later family account remembers John forward on the ship, waving, before the sea took him. That image stayed with David for the rest of his life.
The inquiry material gives another glimpse of Johnny's final moments through Raymond Dodsworth, one of the last crewmen to see him alive. Dodsworth said he told Johnny to kick off his boots and come with him because the ship was going. When asked whether he had described Johnny as frozen with terror, Dodsworth answered that he had seen the fright in his face.
This page does not turn David's grief into blame. The later family recollection records a moment near the end of his life when he spoke through tears about feeling that he had let Johnny die. That was a survivor's burden, not a finding of fact. The official inquiry did not place blame on David Cressey. The emotional truth and the legal truth need to be held separately.
Some histories begin with a record office reference. This one began with regret: the questions that were never asked while David Cressey was still alive to answer them. Chapter 01 theme
From memory to evidence
Why the research began
David Cressey died in November 2017. In the month before his death, he finally began to talk about the Arctic Viking in more detail, and part of what he said was recorded by his younger daughter. Only after his death did the author fully realise how much had gone unasked.
That regret became the beginning of the Arctic Viking Obsidian research vault and, eventually, this website. The aim is not only to retell a disaster, but to put family memory beside documented evidence: crew lists, newspaper reports, Ministry of Transport inquiry material, court records, ship histories and later wreck research.
The author does not approach the story as a trawler expert, but as the son of one of the survivors. That position matters. It keeps the story personal, but it also demands care. A family memory can preserve what no formal record notices; a formal record can test, clarify or complicate what a family has carried.
Chapter 01 therefore casts the first line. It begins with a father who rarely spoke, a lost friend whose name would not leave the story, and a son trying to recover the history before it disappeared completely.
Documentary record
The evidence trail
The research follows crew lists, inquiry testimony, newspaper reports, court material and ship records.
Remembrance
The human centre
The Arctic Viking is treated not just as a lost trawler, but as the story of the men who sailed, survived and died.
Sources used for this chapter include the Arctic Viking Obsidian research vault notes for David Cressey, John Robinson, the 17 September 1961 St Andrew's Dock summary, the website opening draft and the author's book draft notes. Where the page describes David's feelings or family memory, it is presented as family recollection rather than an official finding.
Chapter timeline
The line before the loss
David Cressey is born
Born in Beverley into a family with deep Hull fishing connections.
Nautical school
David attends Blyth Wellesley nautical school, a route into disciplined maritime training.
Service before fishing
Royal Navy training at HMS Collingwood is followed by Army service before he returns to the fishing industry.
Signed on to the Arctic Viking
David joins the Boyd Line trawler at St Andrew's Dock for a voyage to the Norwegian fishing grounds.
The Arctic Viking capsizes
Homeward bound in a North Sea gale, the trawler rolls over off Flamborough Head. Fourteen survive and five men are lost.
David Cressey dies
After speaking more openly near the end of his life, David dies at Lincoln County Hospital aged eighty-one.
The research begins
The family fragment becomes a long documentary investigation into the ship, the crew, the inquiry, the court case and the wreck.