Kelly Prime

Episode 661 ROMAN MARS: This is 99% Invisible. I’m Roman Mars. There’s an archipelago in the far west of the UK. And I mean far west. Like, once you think you’re in the west, like around Cornwall, keep going. And then take a ferry another three hours west, and you’ll find yourself in a collection of islands called the Isles of Scilly. KELLY PRIME: That’s silly spelled S-C-I-L-L Y, not silly ha ha. ROMAN MARS: That’s 99PI producer Kelly Prime. KELLY PRIME: In fact, Silly is not ha ha at all.

Just off the southwestern coast of the United Kingdom, the Isles of Scilly form a jagged, treacherous archipelago that has claimed hundreds of ships. The most infamous of these disasters unfolded on a stormy October night in 1707, when a British naval fleet crashed headlong into the reefs, destroying four ships and killing roughly two thousand sailors.