Birth year recorded
The Raymond Dodsworth crew note records his birth year as 1937 and his age as twenty-four at the time of the disaster.
Crew biography · Survivor · Spare hand
Raymond Dodsworth
Raymond Dodsworth was a twenty-four-year-old spare hand aboard Arctic Viking. He survived the capsize after being trapped in a flooding bathroom, forcing his way out and swimming to the life raft.
Life and work
The spare hand from Manchester Close
The Arctic Viking Obsidian research vault records Raymond Dodsworth as a spare hand aboard Arctic Viking H452. He was twenty-four at the time of the disaster, with his address given in newspaper reporting as 9 Manchester Close, Waverley Street, Hull.
Although listed as a spare hand, Dodsworth was at the wheel during the 3 a.m. watch. His evidence became important because he had felt the ship's behaviour earlier that morning, before the final capsize.
He described the vessel swinging heavily and listing to port. The bosun's efforts to bring the ship under control were, in his account, unable to stop the lurching that marked the early warning signs of a dangerous morning.
Back to crew"I was pinned to the side when the bathroom port-hole stove in and within seconds, the bathroom was filling with water." Raymond Dodsworth, reported at the Ministry of Transport inquiry
The early warning
The 3 a.m. watch
During the 3 a.m. watch, Dodsworth noticed the ship swinging "all over the place" and listing to port. The vault note says the ship lurched four times, with the first being the most severe. During one of the lurches, he saw crew gathering under the whaleback.
These details mattered later because they showed that the Arctic Viking had been behaving uneasily before the final capsize. Dodsworth was not making a technical stability argument; he was describing what it felt like to be at the wheel of a working trawler that would not settle.
In the later Waddy court case, reporting records him saying he had been at the wheel before the disaster and found the helm sluggish. That evidence became one part of the wider argument about the ship's trim, list and handling.
Escape
From the bathroom to the raft
After his watch, Dodsworth went to bathe and shave between about 8:15 and 8:30 a.m. He was halfway through shaving when the trawler heeled over to port and threw him against the side of the bathroom.
His reported evidence says the porthole stove in and the room filled with water within seconds. He forced the door open, escaped, and by then the ship was already on her side.
Dodsworth then had to swim from underneath or alongside the capsizing vessel to the life raft. One report gives the distance as about twenty yards. His later phrase, "I learned how to swim that morning," has become one of the stark survivor summaries of the disaster.
The men he saw
Robinson and Lound
Dodsworth's evidence is also painful because it preserves glimpses of two men who were lost. On deck, he saw John Robinson and told him to kick off his sea boots and come with him because the ship was going. Asked whether Robinson seemed frozen with terror, Dodsworth answered that he had seen the fright in his face.
Dodsworth went amidships, and when he turned back, Robinson was no longer there. Other notes connected to the crew-location timeline place Robinson among those overtaken as the ship capsized.
Another account records Dodsworth seeing his friend and watch mate Dennis Lound washed away on a plank. These are not neat heroic scenes. They are fragments of a disaster in which men could see one another and still be unable to save one another.
Record trail
What the surviving notes preserve
At the wheel
Dodsworth was wheel operator during the 3 a.m. watch and described heavy swinging, listing to port and repeated lurches.
Bathroom escape
He was shaving when the ship went over, the porthole burst in, and water filled the bathroom.
Survives the capsize
He forced his way out, swam to the raft, and survived to be rescued by Derkacz.
Inquiry evidence
His testimony helped reconstruct the early lurches, the bathroom escape and the final sightings of lost crewmen.
Sources used include the Arctic Viking Obsidian research vault note for Raymond Dodsworth, the combined and MOC crew lists, the 3 a.m. and crew-location timeline notes, newspaper reports including "Terror Froze Lost Fisherman", "Hung on to Wheel like grim death", "Trawlerman frozen with terror - Witness" and "Death of a trawler - By her skipper", plus Waddy court-case reporting. Where the record is incomplete, the page avoids inventing detail.