AGROUND OFF CALSHOT

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25160, 16 April 1947, Page 7

AGROUND OFF CALSHOT

Queen Elizabeth Hard On Bank

12 TUGS FAIL TO MOVE LINER (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11 p.m.) LONDON, April 15. The liner Queen Elizabeth ran aground late yesterday afternoon on a shingle bank at the entrance to Southampton Water. A fleet of 12 tugs attempted unsuccessfully to refloat the Queen Elizabeth on the tide this morning. They made four attempts within an hour. ’ A Southampton docks official said that no anxiety was felt because the liner did not seem to be deeply stuck, but a tugmaster who went alongside her during the night said: “She is there for three days. I do not think we can move her until they empty her tanks and take off the passengers and luggage. She is stuck very tight.” The Queen Elizabeth was due at Southampton from New York at 5.30 p.m. yesterday, with 2200 passengers and a crew of 1200.

After seven tugs had last evening failed to move the liner., the towing supervisor said: “We don’t know the full extent of the Queen Elizabeth’s plight, but her bows are fast on the shingle.” Hundreds who were waiting to meet the Queen Elizabeth, drove to Southampton Water to watch the rescue tugs.

When the liner grounded watchers ashore saw her suddenly stop dead, and black smoke belched from her funnels as she turned on all her power in a vain effort to jwrench herself free. An eye-witness at Calshot said: “All the lights are on. She looks lovely. She seems very calm in a calm sea, and you would think she was anchored there.” /

The bank she struck is in an intricate channel, where the Aquitania ran aground in 1935. The Majestic, then the world’s largest liner, struck there a year later. Ten tugs were needed to pull the Aquitania, which was half the Queen Elizabeth’s tonnage, into deep water.