CABLE NEWS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4467, 21 September 1901, Page 5

CABLE NEWS.

UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION. —BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH. —COPYRIGHT.

WRECK OF A TORPEDODESTROYER.

GEEAT LOSS OF LIFE. , SIXTY-EIGHT PEESONS DROWNED. LONDON, September 19. The torpedo-boat destroyer Cobra has been wrecked while making a steam, trial from the constructors’ yard at Newcastle to Portsmouth. She struck on a rock on the Dowsing Shoal, broke in halves and foundered. Twelve out of the thirty men aboard were rescued alive. Six bodies have been recovered and brought to Grimsby. DETAILS OF THE DISASTER.

(Received September 20, 10.50 p.m.) LONDON. September 20.

The Cobra struck on Dowsing Shoal at seven o’clock on Wednesday morning. The sea was terribly rough -at the time.

In a few moments the vessel broke amidships. A whaleboat and dinghey were immediately launched. Fifty persona crowded into the whaleboat, which quickly swamped, and all were drowned.

The chief engineer of the Cobra, nine bluejackets and the two Messrs Parsons, the turbine machinery fitters, got into the dinghey and were picked up after battling ten hours with the waves. Besides a navigating party of fiftythree, under Lieutenant Thomas Worth Smith, there were a number of civilians and workmen aboard.

The manager of the Parsons Turbine Works and the engineering manager cf the Elswick Works were also on the vessel, making seventy-one in all.

It is feared that all on board were drowned, excepting those rescued from the dinghey. Lieutenant Smith stood on the bridge with his arms folded, and went down with the destroyer. At the last moment the chief engineer, who stood beside the lieutenant, dived overboard, and was picked up by a sailor clinging to the dinghey, who, seeing the boat was full, slipped back into the water, saying “Never ■ miud. mates; there’s no room for me,”, and was drowned.

The Cobra was a sister ship of the famous Viking (wrecked near Alderney a few weeks ago) and had just been Depleted at the Elswick works.