TUG'S PLUNGE TO DOOM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21112, 20 February 1932, Page 2 (Supplement)

TUG'S PLUNGE TO DOOM.

COLLISION WITH LINER. LOSS OF EIGHT LIVES. SINKS LIKE A STONE. SOLE SURVIVOR'S GRIM ORDEAL. Gallion's Reach, a desolate stretch of the Thames below Woolwich, where 53 years ago the Princess Alice,, a pleasure steamer, sank with the loss of 700 lives after a collision with a collier, was the scene of another shipping disaster a few weeks ago. As an American liner was slowly making her way, up stream at night time she came into collision with a tug which was crossing from the Kent to the Essex shore. The little vessel was badly holed below the waterline and sank like a stone in a few seconds, carrying to their doom eight men. The two vessels involved on this occasion were the American Trader, 7430 tons, an American passenger steamer, and the Royalist, a tug of 57 tons. The American Trader was proceeding toward the Royal Albert Dock. The Royalist. which was emploved in towing empty barges to colliers and pulling full ones back into the roads, had stopped at Gallon's Road to put ashore two roadsmen whose duty it was to watch barges moored at night. The Tug Ripped Open. .About 7 p.m. the Royalist proceeded from: the Kent to the Essex side of Gallion's Creek, and it was opposite the King 'George V. Dock that the collision recurred. Ripped open below the waterline, 'the Royalist heeled over, and, before any real effort could be made to rescue them, eight members of her crew were carried to the bottom of the river and* perished. Nearly all were young married men with families.' The youngpst member of the party lived with his widowed mother and two sisters. One of the dead men, Tom Hardy, sensed in the Royal Navy throughout the war, and was on board H.M.S. Cressy when she was blown up in the North Sea in 1914. He was then rescued after beiiig in the water for two hours. With the American Trader was the tug Sun VII., whose crew were able to rescue the sole survivor, Harry Goad, aged 29, married, with one child. His head was injured and he was taken home in a state of collapse,,, §juf£ering from severe shock. He was' able to give the following vivid description of the crash:— "'I was in a cabin with three of . my mates/' ho related, " when suddenly the mate of the tug shouted down: ' Coine on deck at once.' We all made a rush for ■the companion-way and dashed up as deck see were--the bows of a giteafc sh'ijj? Holering"above :tis. The next second I was flung face forward on the deck. * An Absolute Nightmare. " I immediately grabbed a lifebelt. Then the tug sank and seemed to roll over and over me. I went down and down, thinking that I was certain to bo drowned; but to my astonishment I suddenly shot to the surface again. All time I had beer! clinging to the lifebelt, and it must have been this that dragged me to the surface. "It was an absolute nightmare. It happened so suddenly. Thank God I am saved, but they tell me that my eight old pals in the tug fiave gone down with -her. I have been a good many years as lighterman on the river, but never was in such a plight before. It is terrible even, to think of it—eight good rivermen have gone in a flash. I was talking to them only a few minutes before." William Stark, a member of the crew of the American Trader, declared, "A pal and I were looking through a porthole ■when he said, 'Just look at that tug. We are going to hit her.' Just after that we felt a slight jar and then there were fchouts and cries from in front of our bows. The tug seemed to run right across our bows. "I rushed up on deck and saw men struggling in the water in the darkness. • We could hear them shouting for help, but we lost sight of them before we could heave to. The men had jumped overboard, but they would have done better to,have stayed on board, because the tug did not disappear for two or three minutes." Account by Spectator. Mr. G. Curtis, of Edmonton, who was standing outside the sluice-gates of the ... Royal Albert Dock when the collision . occurred, attributed the disaster to the exceptionally strong ebb tide running at the time, " The Royalist was crossing the river from south 16 north," he stated, " and the American Trader was swinging round to enter the Royal Albert Dock. The Royalist also swung round to avoid a. collision, but the tide carried the two vessels together. n The tug was struck amidships. She at once fell away from the bows of the American Trader. The two parts separated and sank almost immediately. Several boats were put out from the steamer with all speed, and qther tugs in the river dashed to the scene, but apart from Goad, who was swimming against the tide, none of the men was seen." One of tlioso most distressed by the collision was the pilot on board the American Trader, who was almost heartbroken when lie heard that a number of lives been lost. The vessel was later ... berthed in King Albert Dock, apparently only slightly damaged. Funnel Out Almost in Half. At low water the following day the ■wrecked Royalist was raised by two Port of London Authority salvage boats. Steel hawsers were passed under the stern and bows of the tug, and, slung under water between the two vessels, she was towed slowly to Charlton and beached. Soon after the arrival of the wreck at Charlton river police boarded her, and, with 12ft. poles and grapples, probed the flooded fore and aft cabins and the tiny Engine-room. Two bodies were found. The river police also recovered the body of the ship's cat, a pathetic bundle of sodden fur, from the fore cabin. When the tug was hauled high out of , the water, a gaping rent in her hull could be seen amidships. Her funnel was cut almost in half. The American Trader is oil-burning, a fid was built in 1920. She was battered •"'■ during an Atlantic gale in March, 1927, when some of the passengers on board . " c o e D^ ed limbs. In January, -ry s - lie made a record Atlantic crossing r tor a single-screw ship in 7 days 21 hours. V J l ' tlie sanie year, in' the Ambrose -, Channel, New York, an American airship made a successful landing on a platform on the steamer's aft-deck and took the . ®S ain > the first occasion on which an ftirship had landed on a merchant yessel.