COTTON SHIP BURNED AT SEA.
Details have just reached Liverpool of an awful conflagration at sea, by which tho A. B. - Wyraan has been wholly destroyed. The ill. fated vessel, which was about 813 tona register, and built in 1866, sailed from Bavannah for Liverpool on the 27th November, baring 2700 bales of cotton en board. It appears that off the banks of Newfoundland, in about lat. 36 N., aud long. 61 W., 6he encountered an awful gale, accompanied by tho severest thunder and lightning. The gulo lasted two days, and on tho second night the main royal mast head was struck by lightning, carrying the fire down into the hold. Thick volumos of smoke soon issued, and Captain Wyman (whoße name the vessel bears) at once ordered alt places of yen« tilation to be stopped, and promptly altered his course for land, hoping to meet some friendly voßßel on the way. On the 10th December the ship Charles, 708 tons, Captain Lachere, which left Antwerp for New York on November 2, sighted the distressed vessel in the latitude and longitude stated. The Charles had been hove to in the etorm during the j night, and with great risk approached tho burning ship, from which huge volumes of ! Binoke were issuing through the seams. A coinmuuicatioa was made by means of boats. Captain Lachere himself boarded the Wyman. As he neared her, the heat was almost intolerable, and the captain and crew were collected on the deck, with the boats ready for launching, and expecting every moment that the flames would burst out. The fear o( opening any place below had prevented tho crew from provisioning tho boats iv any way, and they were in tho last stute of despair as to their fate. Tho tanks contained ton thousand gallons of water, and the pumps showed that it was boiling hot from fche fierceness of tho fire bslow. As the last of the crew left the A. B. Wyman, they opened tho main hatch, when the flumes leapt madly up, catching the spars and rigging, which crackled frightfully as the Charles cleared away. The whole ship was at onco a intiss of flume, and had the rescue been postponed much longer, tho whole crew would probably have perished. The Charles landed the captain and crew at New York, from which she was 900 miles distant as the time.
COTTON SHIP BURNED AT SEA.
Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3160, 29 March 1871, Page 2
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