TRAGIC COLLISION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 24

TRAGIC COLLISION

STEAMER AND TUG

Three Gravesend members of the crew of the Ocean Cock, a tug owned by the Gamecock Towing Company, were drowned when their vessel was sunk in collision with the Port Nicholson off Gravesend at about 10.30 one night in June, according to an English paper. They were E. Wright, of 13 Brunswick Road; J. Howard, of 72 Wellington Street, and G. Lewis, who had only been with the company a few weeks. Mr. A. Card, sen., a well-known waterman, of The Grove, Gravesend, was missing at the time. Those who were saved from the disaster were the captain, T. Starkey, of 21 St. John's Road, W. Cox, the second engineer, of 18 Ross Avenue, Denton, and F. Allen (the mate) and T. Shelton (third deck hand), also of Gravesend. F. Nurney, another member of the crew, was taken ill and did not go aboard when the tug left the pier. Mr. Harry Smith, river pilot, of The Avenue, Gravesend, who was on the tug, going off to an inward-bound ship, was also rescued. The Ocean Cock was going off to meet a ship and was rounding the bows of a moored vessel when she was struck with considerable force by the Port Nicholson, outward bound from King George V Dock. The Oce&n Cock, struck amidships, heeled right over, turned on her side, and sank within a few minutes. Pilots on the Terrace Pier heard the crash and put off in the Pilot Cutter. They rescued three men who were clinging to a small boat. Another was taken on board the Port Nicholson. Wreck boats were soon on the site of the fatal collision and lights were placed to warn river traffic. Ambulances were rushed to the Terrace Pier, where relatives of the missing men gathered to hear whether the bodies had been recovered. The Finnish barque Pamir, which left Auckland on February 15 for New Caledonia, arrived in the English Channel on July 26 on her way to Bremen. She was then 102 days out from Noumea. The Hamburg-Amerika Line has placed orders for the building of 21 ships with a total tonnage of 122,700. The programme, it is stated, will be financed out of the company's own resources-