FIRE AND EXPLOSION

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12197, 23 July 1925, Page 3

FIRE AND EXPLOSION

ON A PLEASURE YACHT ONE WOMAN DEAD: FOUR MISSING A CIGARETTE TRAGEDY SAN FRANCISCO, June 29. Latest details show that one woman was dead and four persons were missing as well as 20 in hospital as a result of a fire and explosion which caused the pleasure yacht Crystal to sink shortly before midnight, five miles oil Chelsea, on the Atlantic Coast off Ne.v Jersey. The tragedy occurred while 36 youny men and women were enjoying a moonlight sail and dance aboard the Crystal. Panic broke out among the passengers, following a terrific blast that came after one guest had tossed a cigarette into the forward hatch, where the gasoline supply was stored. The young woman who was drowned was Deborah Knight, of Pleasantville. Her body was picked up by Longport coastguardsmen who rushed to the rescue after the explosion had served as an "5.0.5.” Captain William I’oung, skipper ot the Crystal, who was burned in the fire that followed the blast, yas rescued by coastguardsmen. He was released under 2000-dollar bonds pending investigation of the tragedy. The Crystal left Absecon Inlet at 9 o’clock at night, and 100-foot launch was large enough to enable 18 couples to dance on the lower deck. Suddenly the fox trot music that emanated from a phonograph was drowned out by the explosion, which rocked the boat to an extent that it was at first feared that it might capsize. Almost immediately the forward deck burst into flames. Harry Lehmann of Atlantic City, was at the wheel, and with him was his wife, Barbara. “DECK HEAVED NP” “Everything was going along quietly,” Lehmann told newspapermen, “with the sea as calm as a mill-pond. Most of those aboard were dancing. All of a sudden the forward deck heaved up under a loud explosion that blew me away from the wheel. Women began to scream and rush around. Flames shot up from the deck almost simultaneously with the explosion. I shouted to those women and voung men aboard to tear up the planking deck and started to do so myself. Some started to do what they were told, but the flames drove them all over to the starboard side and gave the ship a heavy list that carried away some of the lifeboats. “Captain Young kept moving around, trying to keep order, telling them to be cool and everything would be all right, but they didn’t listen to him, and when the lijt on the starboard side occurred the captain ordered them to the port side, so he could get them into lifeboats. “They all rushed over at once, and there was a counter-list that submerged all x the lifeboats on that side. The women seemed to have gone crazy and some of the men, too. We had the hardest time, with it getting hotter every minute, to get them to put on lifebelts. As soon as they got them on they jumped into the water, and yon could see them in the light of the roaring flames, bobbing around, screaming, their faces as white as death. SHIP BURNED TO WATER-LINE “I guess it was an hour before the Longport coastguards with Captain Charlie Turner reached us. By that time everyone was in the water and the ship was burned down to the waterline. Captain Young was the last to leave the Crystal.” Some of those rescued were permitted to return home after medical _ treatment, but most of them remained at the hospital, many in a dying condition from their severe burns. The coastguard crew out of Longport was tho first to reach the scene. They were soon joined by the Absecon crew and several members of the “Dry Navy” on patrol in the vicinity. They Sicked up the passengers who were oating around in lifebelts and rushed them to Atlantio City. Mildred Mack, one of the girls who was rescued, said Warren Duka, who was reported missing, was drowned- “I saw him go down,” she said. “His face was near mine, and it was white and his eyes were closed.” So spectacular was the fire that brought tragedy to the Crystal dancing party that thousands of guests at hotels in Atlantic City far away could see the flames. The sky was illuminated for miles around, and hundreds of people climbed to the roof to watch the fire. —(Auckland “Star’s” special correspondent.)