SURROUNDED BY SHARKS.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume X, Issue 88, 7 February 1907, Page 2

SURROUNDED BY SHARKS.

STEAMER BRITISH KING GOES

UNDER

HEROIC RESCUES j.

Battered almost literally to pieces by the seas in a raging Atlantic hurricane, the Phoenix line steamship Rritish King, bound from New York for Antwerp, foundered on Sunday evening, March 10, about 150 miles south of Sable Island, and 27 members of her crew were lost.

Suffering, mental and physical, and numerous acts of heroism in saving life rarely exampled in the record of tragedies of the sea attended the loss of her. Thirteen men were rescued from the sinking vessel by the Leyland liner Bostonian, bound from Manchester to Boston, and 11 by the German tank steamer Mannheim, from Rotterdam for New York. Five others who had been sucked down in the vortex into v.hich the British King was engulfed were picked up by the Bostonian from a frail bit of wreckage which they had grasped after a desperate struggle for life in a : whirlpool. The Bostonian arrived at Boston on the afternoon of March 4, and the details of the disaster became known.

Captain James O’Hagan, of the British King, died on board the Bostonian from the effects of injuries received in trying to save the ship.

Two lifeboats 1 from the Bostonian were crushed to fragments, and the

volunteer crews which manned them were thrown into the high running seas while engaged in the work of rescue, but all were safely landed on board the steamer. When the first lifeboat was lowered from the Bostonian the small craft was swept against the stern ‘ of the big' ship and destroyed and several of the seamen were injured. Yet, despite the boisterous condition of the sea, the volunteers were rescued by lines thrown out from their steamer.

Another attempt to reach the sinking ship was successful, and 3 3 men including Captain O’fTagan, were taken fram the British King to the Bostonian. Then, again a powerful billow** carried the lifeboat against the side of the ship and destroyed it, and the life-savers were thrown into the sea, to bo rescued only after an hour’s effort by their comrades. Volunteers from the Mannheim, after a heroic battle with the waves, had taken off 11 from the British King, but after this neither 1 of the steamers, in consequence of the increasing gale, could make an attempt to reach the foundering freighter. Moreover, darkness fell, and it was an utlor impossibility to do anything but wait for the moonlight to guide them to the stricken ship. In the darkness the British King, which was then waterlogged and helpless, plunged down bow first, and was lost. BATTLE WITH STORM.

For three days her captain and crew working against unconquerable odds, had tried to prevent or at least postpone, their ship’s destruction. One day, height of the tempest, the deckload of oill barrels of the British King and all her fittings were carried over-board. The barrels and wreckage, forming into a rowerful ram both to stern and port then wore driven down upon her sides with crushing force by the breaking waves, opening up the vessel's plates and allowing the water to pour into her holds.

Tiie extent of the leak was not understood until the following day, and then, although the hands were placed at the pumps, the water gained considerably. The fires had been extinguished and the engines rendered useless by the rising water. At the end of the three days, when all hands had laboured ceaslessly without rest and with little food, the Bostonian and Mannheim were sighted, and to these Captain O’Hagan displayed the signal for assistance.

Hatches were torn open, and groat volumes of water flooded every part of the ship, putting out her fires. Soon the ship became absolutely helpless. The rudder had held for a time, enabling Captain O’Hagan to steady his ship in the storm, but this, too, was swept off.

All the time the wreckage and oil barrels had been gathering about the steamer, and now the billows carried them down with tremendous energy against the sides of the ship. The hull was started badly, but not until the Saturday did the crew realize that tho water had entered the ship to such an extent that it seemed inevitable that she would sink. The seamen suffered constantly from exposure, from the attacks of the waves which flooded the ship, from lack of sleep, from hunger, and from bruises and injuries received by, being tossed about on the vessel’s deck. By Saturday the British King had settled noticeably in the water. CAPTAIN’S HEROIC WORK. Realising the necessity of quick action Captain O’Hagan himself went into the hold and strove to repair the most damaged sections. It was while doing this that a barrel of oil fractured one of his legs. In spite of this and of internal injuries, Captain O’Hagan refused to go to his cabin. He ordered that his leg be bound up, and resumed command, and directed the efforts which were being made to plug up the hole in the ship’s side. But the captain’s efforts to repair his ship were fruitless. The water gained continually, by Saturday night all hands were forced to take refuge on the deck. The cattle were swept overboard gradually by the seas and drowned. At 6 o’clock on Sunday morning Captain O’Hagan sighted the Mannheim, and shortly afterwards the Bostonian.

The perils of rescuers and rescued were made worse by the fact that a school of sharks hovered round the doomed ship all Saturday and Sunday, and also whilst the work of rescue Was being carried out.