The Neills were no exceptions among shipowners in suffering depletion of their fleet through the risks of rock and storm. The Triton, Alma and White Star were lost far from home as we have seen, but the dangers of the local coast equalled most foreign shores; the average number of wrecks on the Down coastline alone was ten per annum in the 1870s. A high proportion of the Belfast collier fleet ended their careers by being total losses on this trade. Two captain-owners from John Neill's close-knit Belfast dockland locality lost their vessels around this time, Edward McSherry of Earl Street, whose Thomas ended up in Cloughey Bay, and York Street man James Magee in the Peruvian, a wreck in Loch Ryan. Now and again whole crews vanished, such as the men from the schooner Goldfinder, overloaded and missing between Ayr and Belfast in November 1875, or even of the brand-new steamer Bowfell, Troon for Belfast, a mystery loss seven years later.