GIANT BRITISH LINER RUNS AGROUND

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 April 1947, Page 7

GIANT BRITISH LINER RUNS AGROUND

Queen Elizabeth Held Fast On Shingle Bank (Recd. 10.50 a.m.) LONDON, April 15. > The giant liner Queen Elizabeth ran aground in fog on the Brambles, a shingle bank, at the entrance of Southampton Water. Calshbt signal station said the liner has been aground since 4.30 p.m. and seven tugs are trying to refloat her. The Queen Elizabeth was due at Southampton at 5.50 p.m. i) with 2,200 passengers and a crew of 1200 from New York. There was dense fog in the Solent. Visibility this morning was nil. Other ships were delayed .up to six hours before docking at Southampton.

Tugs late this evening abandoned their attempts to refloat the Queen Elizabeth until high tide tomorrow morning.

When she grounded watchers ashore saw her suddenly stop dead. Black smoke belched from her funnels as she turned on all power in a vain effort to wrench ' herself free from the mudbank between the Brambles and Thorn Knoll, a mile and a half offshore at Calshot.

The tugs reported that the liner was on an even keel and in no grave danger. Hundreds waiting to meet the Queen Elizabeth drove to Southampton water to watch the rescue tugs. An eye-witness at Calshot said: “All lights are on. She looks lovely. She seems very calm in the calm sea

and you would think she was anchored there.”

The mudbank is in the intricate channel where the Aquitania grounded in 1935, and the Majestic, then the world’s largest liner, stuck a year later. Ten tugs were needed to pull, the Aquitania, which is half the Queen Elizabeth’s tonnage, into deep ,water. • The towing supervisor of the Southampton tugs said: “We

don’t know the full extent of the Queen Elizabeth’s plight, but her

bows are fast on the shingle.”

He added that the tugs would make a second attempt to refloat her at 4 a.m. tomorrow. A Calshot resident said the liner grounded at 4.35 p.m. in clear

weather and sunshine.