Tug and Cargo Boat in Collision at Sea

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 5, 7 January 1937, Page 9

Tug and Cargo Boat in Collision at Sea

REMARKABLE ESCAPES MELBOURNE, Bee. 23. When a tug was cut almost in two by a freighter in Corio Bay, Geelong, recently, the five members of the crew of the tug had remarkable escapes from death. The tug, a wooden vessel of G2 tons, was the J. W. Alexander, bound from Melbourne to Geelong, and the other vessel was the Adelaide {Steamship Company's Allara, 3279 tons, which was travelling from Geelong to Melbourne. Tho collison occurred in the Hopetouu Channel at 3.30 a.m. With tho whole of her afterpart demolished and with water flooding the engineroom, the J. W. Alexander was hurled on her beam ends outside the channel on to a sandbank. She has been abandoned as a total wreck. Two members of the crew were thrown into the water. Onj man saved his life by clinging to a wire rope, hanging from the side of the Allara. He was dragged through the water for 15 minutes before ho was rescued. The Allara was damaged in the starboard bow above the waterline. Although dark, the night was fairly clear. The lights of both vessels were burning when Captain William Mcßain, master of the tug, decreased speed as the two vessels approached about midway down the channel. The first intimation of disaster was the sight of the Allara’s bow looming out of the darkness. With a tremendous crash the freighter struck the tug just about the cugineroom. The steel bows crunched through tho tug, splintering planking and heavy wooden beams, and forcing the smaller craft so far over on her beam ends that the starboard bulwarks were more than a foot under water. If the impact had occurred 10ft. further forward, every man in the tug would have been killed, said Captain Mcßain. The boiler or steam pipes would have burst and the men would have been trapped. The mate, Mr. Ernest Petersen, was sleeping in his cabin when the collision occurred. “I was awakened by a terrific crash, and I felt the ship lurch over on her beam ends," he said. “I rushed on to tho deck and called out to someone to help me to clear the lifeboat. There was another terrific crash, and tho next thing I knew I was in the water, swimming against a strong tide. I was almost exhausted when I saw the hull of the Allara above me. I grasped a wire rope that was hanging down, and was dragged through the water for 15 minutes before my cries for help were heard. Then a lifeboat was lowered and I was picked up." Mr F. Hewett, tho engineer on the ’ tug, Was almost trapped in the engineroom. He heard a cry from the deek and tho crash as the vessel heeled over. Hardwood beams were bending like cardboard as he shut off the engines, and in a moment the water was up to his waist. He attempted to save the log book, but was thrown out of the tug into the water before he could do so. He swam round to the bow and dragged himself on board. Captain Mcßain has been in the tugboat service for 25 years. He was one of two survivors of the tug Nyora, which foundered off the coast of South Australia 20 years ago with the loss of 14 lives.