How do you find out about a boat?

[hanes teulu]

Possible sightings?

Shields Daily Gazette, 30 May 1861
SHIELDS SHIPPING INTELLIGENCE
Colliers arrived at Gravesend
Naiad, Shaw

A similar report appeared in the same paper, 15 Aug 1861

The Newcastle Courant ,Jun 22 1860 under "Marine Intelligence, Exports from Newcastle", reported
"Naiad, Shaw, Fecamp, 111 chs coals... H.Worms"

[hanes teulu]

re "John Shaw, Naiad" 

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~stormrhb/portrait4.htm

[Stanwix England]

Thank you very much everybody. This is very useful information.

I'm looking forward to sharing this with my family.

[seaweed]

Does N R B Q refer to "alphabetic single hoist flags"?

Yes.

The Brig NAIAD official number 23291 was built in 1844 at Southwick on Wear which is some one and a half miles from Sunderland. She was owned in 1861 by William Storm of Robin Hoods Bay.
Her Crew Agreements for 1861 are available from the National Archive. Search via O/N
http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/SearchUI/Details?uri=C2477397
You may get lucky and find logbooks as well. I can find Crew Agrements for her up until 1884. The folowing link would suggest she was lost in January of that year

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~stormrhb/lost.htm

I would have expected that her Principal cargo was coal outward and and general cargo inward. Trading to North Sea East Coast ports and the near Continent.

[Stanwix England]

That's fantastic thank you. It's great to be able to get a sense of the sort of job he had.

Thank you also for the photographs hanes teulu. He looks very stern!

[Seoras]

seaweed, would she have looked something like the 'Isabella' on this link.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~stormrhb/sailingvessels.htm

[hanes teulu]

Seaweed,
Thanks for confirming the flags angle. I had checked the possibility and the Naiad appeared to be carrying dangerous cargo (B).

[hanes teulu]

The Naiad sailed from Hartlepool on 21 Jan 1884 - "coal laden".

By 26 March 1884 reports were appearing in the "Shipping News'" sections of various papers of the Naiad, from Hartlepool, being "overdue"

Northern Echo, 4 April 1884 reported
A MISSING WHITBY VESSEL - The Naiad, Harrison, of Whitby, left Hartlepool for London with coal on 21 Jan and has not been since heard of.

The Morning Chronicle mentioned "...official no 23,291".

And then the trail goes cold

[seaweed]

seaweed, would she have looked something like the 'Isabella' on this link.

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~stormrhb/sailingvessels.htm

Yes. The Brig was a two masted vessel square rigged on both masts. It is a simple and efficient sailing rig, and was still in use up to the very end of commercial sailing.

hanes teulu. I may have misslead you the letters N R B Q are her Commercial Code Signal. In the days before radio this was her individual identity signal displayed in flags.

Ilona Wheldale England
I have looked every where for a photograph. A post on the Whitby Yahoo board may give results.
http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/thewhitbygroup/?tab=s