Date:	Wednesday 10 September 1919
Time:	day
Type:	Supermarine Sea Lion I
Owner/operator:	Supermarine Aviation Works Ltd
Registration:	G-EALP
MSN:
Fatalities:	Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 1
Aircraft damage:	Destroyed
Location:	Between Hengistbury Head and Boscombe Pier, off Bournemouth, Dorset -   United Kingdom
Phase:	Landing
Nature:	Test
Departure airport:	Swanage Bay, Swanage, Dorset
Destination airport:	Boscombe pier, off Bournemouth, Dorset
Confidence Rating:	Information is only available from news, social media or unofficial sources

Narrative:
The Supermarine Sea Lion I was a British racing flying boat designed and built by the Supermarine Aviation Works for the 1919 Schneider Trophy at Bournemouth, England. The later racing flying boat for the 1922 Schneider Trophy the Sea Lion II was a different design.

In need for a contender for the 1919 Schneider Trophy race Supermarine developed a racing flying boat as a modification of their Baby. The Baby was a single-seat biplane fighter flying boat powered by a 450 hp (336 kW) Napier Lion engine in pusher configuration that had first flown in 1917.

Re-built as racing flying boat G-EALP was entered into the 1919 race flown by Basil Hobbs. On 10 September 1919, the aircraft struck flotsam when Hobbs took off from Swanage Bay, having landed in thick fog in order to get his bearings, and the fuselage was holed. When he alighted between Hengistbury Head and Boscombe Pier for his compulsory first lap landing the aircraft sank. The race ended in chaos due to the fog and the results were annulled.

A contemporary newspaper report describes the incident ("Illustrated London News - Saturday 27 September 1919:

"...The next starter was Squadron-Commander Hobbs on the Supermarine. He likewise came down into the fog to find the [Swanage] mark-boat. He alighted on the water, ran along for some distance, and then, finding no boat of any kind, got off again. In getting off his machine hit some floating substance with a terrific crash, but left the water safely. He then flew to the Christchurch mark-boat and came down to make one of the specified alightings. His actual alighting was perfect, but, as was proved by subsequent examination of the boat, the whole bottom had been torn out in the aforesaid crash at Swanage. The result was that the Supermarine immediately became a submarine, but happily Commander Hobbs escaped with nothing worse than a soaking."

"Schneider Trophy Racers" (Robert Hirsch, Motorbooks) says "After the contest the aircraft was dismantled and the hull was loaned to the Science Museum for a 1921 exhibition." What happened to G-EALP after that is not known, but it is presumed to have been broken up and burnt in 1922-23. (The Science Museum, when asked, stated that have no record of G-EALP)

1. A.J.Jackson, British Civil Aircraft since 1919 Volume 3, Putnam & Company, London, 1974, ISBN 978-0-370-10014-2
2. Illustrated London News - Saturday 27 September 1919
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Sea_Lion_I
4. https://cwsprduksumbraco.blob.core.windows.net/g-info/HistoricalLedger/G-EALP.pdf
5. https://www.hydroretro.net/race1919
6. https://www.key.aero/forum/historic-aviation/3855334-supermarine-sea-lion-i-g-ealp
7. http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_supermarine_sea_lion.html
8. http://www.hampshireairfields.co.uk/airfields/bef.html
9. http://www.airhistory.org.uk/gy/reg_G-E1.html
10. http://www.rcawsey.co.uk/Accb1929.htm
11. http://www.afleetingpeace.org/index.php/15-aeroplanes/81-register-gb-g-ea

Date/time	Contributor	Updates
03-Mar-2020 21:58	Dr. John Smith	Added
30-Oct-2021 07:59	Jinx 40	Updated [Date]