 Upon reaching the Bar her course would have been changed from approximately 130 degrees to 080 degrees as she entered the approach channel to the river.This would have caused her to take the sea on her port beam with the result that she got sufficiently off her course to strike a sandbank thereby causing her to founder between the Bar lightship and the Q1 buoy, sinking in the Mersey approach channel (at ).It is believed she was broached by a large wave, which overwhelmed the ship.