SHIPPING DISASTERS

Evening Star, Issue 20129, 20 March 1929, Page 11

SHIPPING DISASTERS

HOW THEY HAPPEN RESULTS OF TRAGIB TRIFLES What caused the wreck of the liner Yestris, with its dreadful loss of human lives? Officially heavy seas are blamed lor the disaster. Officers corroborate this, and declare that in their whole sea experience they have never seen such gigantic sens. it is probable,-however, that the ship would have survived even those tremendously adverse conditions but ior the cargo shifting. According to Mr David Cook, vice-president of Sanderson and Co., agents for the Lamport and Holt Line, the violent pitching ol the vessel caused the cased automobiles (there were sixty on board) and other cargo in No. I compartment above the water line on the shelter deck to break through the bulkhead separating that compartment from the forecastle and fetching up on the starboard side, causing a list to starboard. DANGEROUS CARGOES.

Cargoes arc frequently responsible for the loss of vessels. A cargo ot bleaching powders and soda-ash wrecked the line steamer Daisy, of Glasgow, on her way to Bombay. In the Bay ol Biscay smoke was seen pouring out of the forward ventilators. Eire was discovered to be eating into the cargo. It was burning very slowly, and under ordinary circumstances could easily have been subdued. But the burning chemicals created clouds of poisonous chlorine gas. and of the first batch of three men who went below two Mere pulled out insensible and one dead. Jloleß were bored in the deck and partitions, and water pumped in. But the deadly James rose thicker and thicker. One man after another Mas overcome, and alter thirty hours’ heroic fight the order muis given to man the boats, and tire Daisv mots left to her fate. A load of rice sank the Pilmitz. a German trader. The vessel shipped a sen, which found its May to the hold where the rice *vas stored. The nee commenced to smcll, and presently it heaved up the solid iron IoM-er deck and wrenched it from its fastenings. Finally the Pilmitz was rent asunder, and settled down to the bottom pi the sen. M'ith her drowned crew washing to and fro athwart her decks. The Maritime Union, which sailed from Hull for San Francisco, carried coni containing a large percentage ol pvrites. The'Coal got M r et in midocean, and gas and sulphur poured out of the forehatch. Within an hour the vessel was M'ell ablaze, and the croiv got away in the boats, leaving her to her doom.

KAISER WILHELM H.’S FATE. Tin; care needed in the bestowal ol coal and caigo was strikingly exemplified by the disaster which belell the great Herman liner Kaiser Wilhelm JJ. in Bremen Harbour I'ound about twenty years ago. This splendid ship could brave any danger of the open ocean, yet, being built essentially tor speed, Imr beam was extremely slender. Giving to this iact it was necessary that she should be very evenly balanced When loading. On the occasion in question a comparatively small quantity ol coal weighed her down at one side and caused her to capsize. Nor is this the only instance ol the kind. The sinking ol : the steamship Etiea in New York Harbour was due to the apparently trivial iact that a single ton ol coal was shot into the wrong bunker. Again, the carelessness oi a stevedore when loading an ocean liner at the London docks sonic years ago brought about a similar disaster. The vessel overbalanced and wont to ihe bottom, a considerable sum having to be expended in raising her. The most remarkable accident ol tills kind, however, occurred in the case oi a White Star steamer. Incredible as it may seem, she was sunk by the weight oi ice adhering to her upper structure. 'The liner encountered a blizzard in crossing the Atlantic, and arrived at New York literally colored with masses of ice. When her cargo was removed and she rose in the water the weight of the ice rendered her topheavy. She wont over and sank. SUNK BY POINT OE KNIFE. Trifle;—absurd trifles:—have on numerous occasions brought disaster to great ships. Some years ago, for instance, a large steamer came to grid on the Irish coast, when she was supposed to be several miles oil land. 'I he weather was fair at the lime, the captain was a carolnl man, and no one could account for the vessel having swerved from her proper course. The .steamer went to the bottom. The inexplicable nalnrc of the disaster caused the owners to employ a diver, who was sent down to examine the wreelt. In doing so he directed his attention to the compass box. Inside it lie detected a liny piece of sled, win’d) appeared to have been snapped from the blade of a pocket knife. There lay the mystery of Ihe solution. It transpired that Hie day before the wreck a sailor bad been set to clean the compass box. and had employed his knife for this purpose. Unknown to him, ibe point of the blade bad broken off. Thai minute fragment- of steel was enough to deflect the needle, and sent the vessel on to the rocks. STORMED BY A COIN.

Tim Italian ironclad S;>itfn;<, n vessel of l-‘V2n() tons, and at the 1 mho one of Iho largest ships in the Italian navy, was steaming in Mediterranean valors, and the third engineer was throwing on liis inekot preparatory to going off duty when he and the other men in the engine room heard a sharp click. The next instant the huge driving machinery shook in a way that threatened to tear the bottom out of fli" vessel, and then came to a standstill-

The utmost consternation reigned aboard, tor no one doubted that some part at the machinery had broken down, and put the groat, vessel at the entire mercy of the high seas running at the lime.

The engineers at once set to work to locate the breakdown, hut nowhere could they discover wi much as a twisted rod nor a broken cog. Alldgether at a loss to account for the stoppage, Ihey tried to restart the machinery, lint the effort was in vain ; something was hopelessly wrong somewhere. All through one- long night the ship tossed about at the mercy of the waves, while the engineers wont over and over again every inch of her machinery in (he hope of locating the break. But. there was none.

It was dawn when a thought flashed into the mind of the third engineer. He remembered that the breakdown had occurred the moment he threw on his jacket, and that the dick he heard was’like metal striking metal. He put his hand in his coat pocket, and counted out his money. Sure enough it was a lira short of what it should have been. The mystery was solved I Half an hour later, after he and his fellows had gone over the machinery again, he forced from between two vital parts of the driving gear a coin, lid lent lira, very badly del need. As lie flung on. his coat the previous evening the coin must have slipped from

his pocket, and, jamming in the revolving machinery, stopped it- As soon as the coin was removed the ship began to forgo forward. Another tritlo, hut, with much more tragic consequences, wrecked the Lonclonian fully a quarter of a century ago. On that November day when she left. Boston there was nothing about her condition, machinery, equipment, or cargo to cause the least uneasiness for her safety. On the contrary, a safer vessel than she was when sbo .set out on that, her last voyage, it would Have been hard to find. But before she bad been at sea many days she got into troubled water. As sbo was perfectly seaworthy and splendidly manned, however, nobody, felt any alarm until suddenly the steering gear went altogether wrong, and the vessel became unmanageable. Before anyone could discover the cause of the. trouble the ship, nimble to balance herself by steering any course, was overpowered by the waves and loiindered, eighteen lives being lost. After a lapse of some weeks tbo mystery of why she had become unmanageable was cleared up. A handful of cotton waste, carelessly dropped by .someone, and drawn ipto tbo machinery, which it clogged, was wholly responsible lor tbc calamity. Merely a handful of cotton waste! TRAGEDIES OF TRIFLES.

There is, indeed, no end to th® tragedy of trifles. Through a small valve being accidentally left open the Iron Duke was once filled with water. £130,000 worth of damage being done. A steel spar falling from aloft pierced through and through the huge Ksperanza a» she was lying empty in Canton Harbour and sent her to the bottom. The breaking of one link in a chain attached to her steering gear sent the drifter Utopia drifting helplessly on top of the Ansom’s ram in Gibraltar Harbour during the night of March 1«, 1891. with the result that she went to the bottom, and nearly GUO of her passengers duel crew were drowned.

As the commander of a famous liner once said, “ When a disaster occurs at sea a captain has perhaps ten seconds in which to decide on his course of action. Those who may afterwards bo called upon to sit in judgment on the matter are allowed many months to arrive at their conclusions. On the sea it is always a case of ‘ Yon never can tell.’ Anything may happen anywhere any time.”

The captain of a big ocean liner has indeed many ticklish times, and he must ever be on the qui live for the unexpected, and act swif.tly when the emergency arises. The fog fiend, icebergs—that greatest menace of the Seven Seas—and floating derelicts, which have sent so many fine ships to the bottom, are among the known perils of the ocean which his _ wideawake brain must be quick to circumvent when disaster threatens his ship. When one adds to these the unknown dangers—the ” trifles ” enumerated in the foregoing tragedies of the seait will readily he granted that “ a life on the ocean wave ” is by, no means “ all beer and skittles.”