Folklore has it that at least 1,200 to 1,300 people died in the accident which has been immortalised by several lokgeets and dramas. So much so that it has become difficult to distinguish fact from fiction.

Now, the Archaeological Department of Rajkot seems to have decided that is time somebody sifted chaff from the grain. Y M Chitalwala, assistant director of western circle of the department has requested the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in Goa to research the sinking of the ship. He said the story had become so embedded in the local folklore with its numerous twists and turns that nobody really knows what the facts were.

Chitalwala has acquired a copy of the ship's original photograph from Florke Museum of London.

He said the original name of the steamer was `Vaitran' and it was built in 1885 by Grejmouth Dockyard Company in Glaxco. Vaitran was 170 feet long, 26 feet wide and 9.9 feet deep. The original owners of the ship -- a London based trade firm Shepherd -- later sold it to the Bombay Navigation Company. Sheth Haji Kasam was the agent of the ship.

The ship was lighted with electric bulbs -- a novelty at that time -- and hence it attained the nickname `vijdi'. But tragedy awaited the ship that set sail from Porbandar on November 8, 1888. Caught in a storm, the steamer sunk on the high seas near Porbandar taking all the passengers along with it.

National Institute of Oceanography was founded to study the boats and ships that had sunk right from the Harappan times. The institute found that about 210 ships had sunk in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Ocean around India from 16th to 19th century. Kasam's vijdi was one of them.

Though no other detail was available about `vijdi', experts felt it was unlikely that the ship carried more than 240 to 300 passengers as it was too small to carry the 1,200 people suggested by folklore.

An NIO research, if carried out, will help unravel the mystery shrouding Saurashtra's sea trade relations with Arabian nations, continues Chitalwala.