FIRE AT SEA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 122, 25 May 1932, Page 6

FIRE AT SEA.

TRAGEDY OF EMIGRANT SHIP. (By CLEM EGGLETON.) The great tragedy of the liner Georges Pliilippar, which took place a few days ago in the Gulf of Aden, where she was abandoned, and where passengers were faced with the peril of fierce flames and shark-infested waters, calls to mind the loss of the Cospatrick, a flue emigrant ship bound for New Zealand in the 'seventies. The worst tragedy that ever happened to a ship bound for New Zealand, a vessel laden with human freight, occurred when the noble ship Cospatrick caught fire off the coast of Africa. Of her quota of four hundred and sixty emigrants, coming out to populate our then sparsely-peopled land, but five were saved from a frightful doom. She left London for Auckland on September 11, 1874, and all went well with the ship until November 17, when the ship with its precious burden was a few hundreds of miles off the Cape of Good Hope. A light breeze was blowing from ■the north-west. Mr. Macdonald, the second officer, kept watch from eight in the evening until midnight. During that period an alarm of fire was raised, and with wonderful rapidity people from all quarters hurried from their berths to the deck in wildest despair. It soon became evident that the fire was a serious one, and the captain endeavoured to put the ship before the wind, but the breeze was too light to effect what might have saved the ship. Agonising shrieks of women and children and despairing groans of men arose a.s the flames burst out of the fore hatchway. Suddenly the ship came head to the wind, driving the flames and suffocating smoke aft. The forward boats were set on fire and the crew was forced back upon hundreds of horror-stricken passengers, crowding the stern. The second officer, taking in the situation, suggested to the captain lowering the remaining boats, but Captain Elmslie's reply was: "No! Continue to endeavour to master the fire." The results showed that, in ignoring the mate's suggestion, a costly error of judgment was made. Half an hour later there was a wild, undisciplined rush to the boats. Eighty persons, mostly women and children, got in and upon the starboard boat. The weijrht bent the davits, and the boat was forced under the water, and soon filled. All its occupants were drowned right alongside of the ship, within view of their fellow passengers, who were unable to lend them a helping hand. The flames caught the sails, pieces of which fell with a shower of fire upon the night attire of the crowd. Panic was about to set in. The sailors stood by the port boat, with instructions not to lower it away until the captain gave word. At this moment, however, the passengers made a mad rush, and the sailors were overpowered. This boat was also overcrowded when lowered, and many jumped after it, injuring those packed below. To add to the terror of the scene, the foremast fell a rotten tree in a bush fire, bringing down flaming rigging and sails upon the heads of those still on board, and simultaneously flames burst out of the after hatch. Shouting to everyone to do the best they could to save themselves, the captain made liis way to his poor wife and child, and with his wife in his arms jumped overboard to a watery grave. The surgeon picked up the infant son of the captain and followed the lead of the skipper, both being drowned. The fall of the mainmast now forced many others overboard, and the majority of the Cospatriek's emigrants met their death by drowning. It was three weeks before the survivors were picked up by a passing vessel, and of all the crew and passengers of the ill-fated ship but five persons were saved.