WRECK IN THE BLACK SEA

Western Star, Issue 1549, 1 April 1891, Page 1 (Supplement)

WRECK IN THE BLACK SEA

The loss of the British sleame; Westbourne in the Black Sea was attended by exceptional suffering to tin crew. Of the vessel’s crew of 25 four are all that survived the ill starred voyage, and these are lying prostrated by suffering in the Odes«;> hospital, under the care of the British consul. The Westbourne, an ordinary trading steamship, left Tbeo dosia, south-east of Crimea, on November 25, laden with linseed, bound to Dunkirk. On the evening of her departure a gale set in, accompanied by a rapidly falling thermometer. The weather grew so intensely cold that the men were frozen to death in lifelike posture at the wheel or wherever their duty called them. Every sea that broke over the vessel froze to her. making her sluggish, and so heavy that she refused to ride the waves and became unmanageable, When the water gained entrance to the hold the cargo began to swell and burst open the decks fore and aft as though powder had exploded in her interior. About midnight, December 10, although but a few hours out of port, the vessel began to go down. Already the corpses of a number of sea. men were visible about the deck, stand iug. up against the rails just as erect as though in full vigor. They were frozen hard. With all the crew that still held fast to their lives, Captain Bennington put out in a small boat and headed her back to Theodosia, distant then some fifty miles. During the early morning the men died off one by one until on reaching Theodosia, the following night, the number was reduced to eight. Subsequently four more died while under medical treatment, leaving but four survivors. Captain Bennington, commander of the Westbourne, is completely prostrated by his sufferings iu the open boat and by the death of his brother, the ship’s chief officer, who perished of tiie awful cold before bis eyes.