LINER RAMS SCHOONER.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 116, 22 June 1914, Page 5

LINER RAMS SCHOONER.

A wireless message was received • at I Ostend on March 18 from the German j liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse reporting that at 1.18 a.m. on that'date ah® collided with an unknown three-masted schooner in lat. 52.52 N., long. 4.0523 L The schooner was apparently oil laden, and the steamer remained in the vicinity for three hours without being able to find any member of the ill-fated crew, and .the message stated that the liner sustained no damage. Up to the present no' further details of the tragedy have come to hand, but a few facts are fairly obvious. The collision occurred shortly after midnight. Th« doomed craft was evidently a sailing vessel of 300 tons or upwards, anA would be carrying a crew of a dozea hands or more. Before anyone on board had time to realise their danger, th» big liner —steaming 20 knots, no —simply wiped her off the face of "thC ocean as though she had been rammef by an iron clad. The unfortunate schooner was by no means the first salt </» ing craft to disappear in a similar ner, nor is she likely to be the last. Keen competition and the desire for speed outweigh all minor considerations, as was proved by the Titanic disaster, with the result that when collisions occur such as the ones recorded above, , the terrific impact gives a sailing vessel practically no chance of escape. Ifc is very evident that the rules of safeguarding life at sea are by no means as perfeet as they might be, and the evi- v denoes of a total disregard of even therudimentary precautions suggests & recklessness amongst seafarers at timea which it is very difficult to realise.