REMEMBRANCE Sunday took on even greater significance for a group of people huddled around a grave in a North-East cemetery yesterday.

Their tears of tribute were not for the fallen in war, but for a small group of sailors who, 100 years earlier, had waged a desperate battle with a raging North Sea.

On November 14, 1901, the North Sea was being whipped by storms and the Erato, a Sunderland-built barque, was being torn apart.

Her crew, all Norwegians, mostly from the seaport of Arendal, north of Oslo, had been fighting storms for more than two weeks as the 50-year-old vessel tried to make her way to North Shields to deliver pit props for North-East coalmines.

She was spotted helpless off Saltburn and eventually drifted into Skinningrove Bay, exhausted after her relentless pummelling by wind and waves.

There, coastguards used rockets to try to reach the stricken vessel, which was easily visible off the shoreline, but all their lines fell short or missed their mark.

At great risk to his own life, coastguard Jessie Simmons worked his way along the storm-lashed jetty, and, despite the danger, succeeded after several attempts in throwing a line to teenage crewman Aksel Akselsen.

Aksel's granddaughter Lynne Black, who travelled to the region from Richmond, California, in the US, recalled: "He said he became unconscious and, when he awoke, he thought he had died and gone to heaven as a lady in white was standing over him. He thought she was an angel - but she was a nurse in the miners' hospital at Skinningrove."

Seventeen-year old Aksel was the only survivor of the Erato. His nine shipmates perished. Six of them, whose bodies were eventually washed up, were buried at nearby Brotton Cemetery. The remaining three, who had lashed themselves to the mast, were never found. A report in the North Star newspaper described how the mast was seen "drifting out to sea with the morning tide".

In later years, Aksel Akselsen would only talk reluctantly about the wreck, so few people would believe him. He eventually died at the age of 84, in California, in 1966.

Yesterday, his granddaughter, along with scores of other descendants of the crew, marked the 100th anniversary of the disaster in a moving ceremony, literally a stone's throw from the actual scene, unveiling a memorial at Skinningrove Coast Guard Station.

Among the dead was Andreas Pederson, the ship's 57-year old mate - and the ceremony was the closing chapter in a remarkable pilgrimage for Mr Pederson's grandson, retired teacher Christian Jensen.

Three years ago, upon his retirement, Mr Jensen began a quest to investigate the "mysterious death" of his grandfather in a shipwreck off the English coastline.

"The Erato was one of scores of Norwegian ships that were lost around the world during 1901 and her loss was only given six lines in the Norwegian newspapers of the time," Mr Jensen said.

Fortunately, newspapers in the North-East at the turn of the century gave considerable coverage to "The Skinningrove Disaster" and Mr Jensen's research led him to Tony Ellis, present-day coastguard at Bridlington Coastguard Station, who, by coincidence, was also researching the history of the wreck. The pair got together to form the Erato Memorial Group, along with the vicar of Brotton Parish Church of St Margaret, the Reverend Bruce Harrison.

Yesterday, the trio were surrounded by descendants of the crew, who travelled from Norway, Denmark and the US, to remember the tragic events of 100 years earlier.

Twelve-year-old Hakon Mosvoll, Mr Jensen's grandson - and therefore the great-great grandson of Andreas Pederson - was joined by Laura Waugh, the 11-year-old daughter of present-day Skinningrove auxiliary coastguard Paul Waugh, to unveil a memorial plaque on the wall of Skinningrove Coastguard Station - directly overlooking the water where the Erato sank.

Said Mr Jensen: "The plaque remembers specifically the crew of the Erato, but we would like to think it is also a memorial to all sailors who lost their lives off the North-East coast.

"A former captain of a ship involved in North Sea trade told me, 'I would rather sail through a hurricane off Greenland, than in rough seas off the North East coast of England'.