Marine collision

“ Often repeated attempts have to be made before a wreck can be reached, and even then the greatest care must be exercised to avoid collision with the plunging hull or injury from floating wreckage and falling spars. When the benumbed and exhausted crew and passengers, who have usually sought refuge in the rigging from the overwhelming seas, have been taken off, the difficult return to shore yet remains. ”

“ Every man on board was mustered, and instructed in case of accident what he should do and where he must report for service. It was very interesting to see the life-boats manned, lowered and rowed around the ship, also [Pg 159] to see the great collision mat quickly put over an imaginary hole in the side of the ship, and to watch the men rush with hose bucket and blankets to put out an imaginary fire. There was no hesitating or inattention: every man seemed to understand just what was expected of him and performed his part with precision and pride. ”

“ A huge white cloud seemed to leap upward through the inky sky like smoke from a cannon, a long line of foam glanced like a lightning flash across the dark sea, and then came a rush and a roar, and over went the ship on her beam ends, and every man on board was blinded, deafened, and strangled, all in one moment, while crash followed crash, as doors, sky-lights, and port-shutters were torn away or dashed to atoms. ”

“ From far down in the Wasdale's hold came a sound which made her captain thrill to feel that discipline had stood its first grim test. Collision doors in bulk-heads were grinding shut with the mutter of far-off thunder.
The electric lights on deck and in the saloons had been snuffed out. The ship was in darkness almost everywhere. From [241] staterooms came screams of women and the wails of little children. The few stewards on watch were first to join the seamen on deck and those who had been flung from their bunks forward by the shock of collision. ”

“ Collision is a peril of the sea if it occurs without fault of either ship but not if by reason of the negligence of the carrying ship. Tempests, rocks, shoals, icebergs and other obstacles are within the expression; so are incursions of sea water, which damage the goods, as well as such bad weather as prevents ordinary ventilation and causes the cargo to heat and sweat. Where the peril is the proximate cause of the loss, the shipowner is excused. ”

“ Similarly, on the seas, the disasters to the Ville du Havre, to the Oregon, and, only three years ago, to the Elbe, show the terrific results of collision, to which every ship crossing the ocean is liable. Collisions between vessels less known than those named are of weekly occurrence. Yet no general outcry is raised against the general safety of the transatlantic liners. People unconsciously realize that, where accidents are so infrequent, the risk to themselves in the individual case is slight, though the results, when they happen, are dreadful. ”

“ A dozen or more badly injured men were the next to be taken off; then, with the utmost precision and discipline, the rest of the crew gained the boats, but not before the collision-mat party for'ard were up to their knees in water.
Clouds of steam issued from the boiler- and engine-rooms, while at intervals muffled explosions of compressed air showed that the water-tight doors, already strained by the explosion, were unable to withstand the terrific pressure of the inflowing sea. ”

“ Men hurled from sleep by the shock of the collision had to hurry to their stations in the confusion that must have been inseparable from such an accident. Precious moments inevitably were lost in getting the boat crews to their post, and all the time the ship was going down. Once the crew were at their stations, the launching of the boats must have gone on with the precision of clock-work. ”

“ Just before I reached the top of the wardroom ladder I felt the ship strike something and supposed we were in collision with another vessel. The shock was an easy one at first, but was followed immediately by others of increasing force, and, as my feet touched [20] the deck, by two severe shocks that caused the ship to tremble in every timber. ”

“ Perhaps the most frequent cause of wreck, especially on our own coast, is negligence on the part of the master. If we analyze the cases of collision that occurred in the year 1857, we are surprised to find that by far the larger portion of them occur in the open sea, and in clear bright weather. Out of 277 collisions, involving total and partial loss, bad look-out was the cause of 88, and neglect of the rule of the road of 33 collisions. It is a saying among sailors that if the three L’s are attended to—Lead, Latitude, and Look-out,—a ship is safe ”

“ Under those circumstances, it is correct to say that inevitable accident, as applied to such a case, must be understood to mean a collision which occurs when both parties have endeavored by every means in their power, with due care and caution, and a proper display of nautical skill, to prevent the occurrence of the accident. When applied to a collision, occasioned by the darkness of the night, perhaps a more general definition is allowable. ”

“ The lives lost in these casualties were 15.
“With reference to the collisions on and near our coasts during the year 1876-77, 48 of the 847 collisions were between two steamships both under way, irrespective of numerous other such cases in our harbours and rivers, the particulars of which are not given in the Abstract. No disaster at sea or in a river is often more awful in its consequences than a collision, as was too strikingly illustrated last year in the cases of the German ironclad Grosser Kurfürst, and the Thames steamer Princess Alice. ”

“ The collision must, in some degree, be occasioned by her fault. A ship, properly secured, may, by the violence of a storm, be driven from her moorings, and be forced against another vessel, in spite of her efforts to avoid it. ”

“ This is the usual situation in the heat-generation collision and rarely harms the ship.
"Perpendicular impact, however, does the damage. At low velocities and densities perpendicular impact craters the hull and most of the blast effect is dispersed laterally and to the rear. At higher velocities the particle vaporizes but the explosive force craters the hull and shapes inward, a lot like the effect of an air gun pellet on plate glass. Although the hull penetration may be mere pea size, blast and compression inside can be terrific, besides the sharp shock throughout the whole ship." ”

“ We know that the collision was the result of daring navigation; that the wholesale loss of life was due to the lack of lifeboats and the failure to fill completely the few that were available; and that, had it not been for the amazing indifference or stupidity of the captain of a nearby steamer, who failed to answer the distress signals of the sinking vessel, the whole of the ship's complement might have been saved. ”

“ The man who would courageously meet death at the cannon's mouth, or at the point of the bayonet, is frequently unnerved in such a scene as this, where there is no other enemy to contend with than the inexorable waves, and no hope of safety or relief but what may be afforded by a floating plank or mast. The tremendous shocks as the ship rose with the sea, and fell again on the rocks, deprived the people of the power of exertion; while at every crash portions of the shattered hull, loosened and disjointed, were scattered in dreadful havoc among the breakers. ”

“ All at once from the dark line of the horizon whither it retired to gain its momentum, the monster rushed suddenly towards the Abraham Lincoln with alarming rapidity, stopped suddenly about twenty feet from the hull, and died out—not diving under the water, for its brilliancy did not abate—but suddenly, and as if the source of this brilliant emanation was exhausted. Then it reappeared on the other side of the vessel, as if it had turned and slid under the hull. Any moment a collision might have occurred which would have been fatal to us. ”

“ The swell plunged over her weather-side like the first break of a dam, and as we scrambled up to the bulwarks to hold on for bare life, we saw a roller fit to swamp us, coming on out of the sheet of foam, when crash went mizzen-topmast and main-to’-gallant-mast; the ship payed swiftly off by help of her head-sails, and, with a leap like a harpooned whale, off she drove fair before the tremendous sweep of the blast.
“The least yaw in her course, and she’d have never risen, unless every stick went out of her. ”

“ A gale sprung up with great suddenness as the crew were leaving the doomed vessel, and as the last man jumped into the life-boat the masts of the big schooner fell with a crash, and the sea soon completed the work of total destruction. ”

“ Scourged by the merciless blast, battered by the threshing sails, they strove for dear life through two terrible hours of that stern night. A feeble cry was heard,—a faint splash. Only a man dropped from the main top-gallant yard,—through one hundred and twenty feet of darkness into the yeasty smother beneath, and ere the news reached the deck, calm and peaceful below the tumult, more than a mile astern, swallowed by the ever-unsatisfied maw of the ravening sea. And onward like a meteor sped the flying ship, “running her Easting down.” ”

“ There followed clap after clap, as hatches were burst open by other explosions, and in an incredibly short time the whole ship was one blazing mass. So instantaneously had the calamity fallen upon them that there was no time to lose, no time even to dress or to put sufficient provisions into the boats, which were immediately lowered. Men, scantily attired, some only in vests and pants, tumbled into them, and strong backs bent to the oars, seeking to pull away from the terrific heat and to get out of the range of danger from the ship, which seemed as though she must soon go down. ”

“ The flames soon mastered his ship. Her sides had just been painted, and the oil-jars and paint-buckets were lying on the poop. By the prodigious light of this conflagration the situation of the two fleets could now be perceived, the colours of both being clearly distinguishable. About ten o'clock the ship blew up, with a shock which was felt to the very bottom of every vessel. Many of her officers and men jumped overboard, some clinging to the spars and pieces of wreck, with which the sea was strewn, others swimming to escape from the destruction which they momentarily dreaded. ”

“ Some efforts were even then being made, to cut this portion of the wreck away; for, as the ship, which was broadside on, turned towards us in her rolling, I plainly descried her people at work with axes, especially one active figure with long curling hair, conspicuous among the rest. But, a great cry, which was audible even above the wind and water, rose from the shore at this moment; the sea, sweeping over the rolling wreck, made a clean breach, and carried men, spars, casks, planks, bulwarks, heaps of such toys, into the boiling surge. ”

“ Inability to avoid a collision usually exists at the time the collision occurs; but it is seldom a matter of much difficulty to trace the cause of the disaster to some antecedent omission of duty on the part of one or the other, or both, of the colliding vessels. ”

“ In a few minutes a couple of shots may flash out, several shells shatter our conning-tower, the water stream into the ship's body, and in a short while the North Sea close over us.
None of this occurs however. A brief command in the control-room, a few grips of the valves and hand wheels, and we continue our way unhurt, for brutal power may shut us from the surface of the seas, but our enemies in their impotence only cause us to lie a few fathoms deeper. We continue submerged for the sake of safety until daybreak. Towards four o'clock we rise to the surface. ”

“ Half a minute of breathless anxiety, heedless of the bullets that were flying past, and then, up on the cliffs, behind the cruiser, a balloon-shaped mass of white smoke burst out, masses of rock leapt into the air and fell splashing into the sea, and the roaring of the explosion tossed from hill to hill, and, crashing from cliff to cliff with tremendous reverberations, came up to them like thunder.
"Their game is up," shouted Hunter. "Cheer, men, cheer!" ”

“ All the terror of the situation is in the fluctuations of the flooring. How fight an inclined plane subject to caprices? The ship has, so to speak, in its belly, an imprisoned thunderstorm, striving to escape; something like a thunderbolt rumbling above an earthquake.
In an instant the whole crew was on foot. It was the fault of the gun captain, who had neglected to fasten the screw-nut of the mooring-chain, and had insecurely clogged the four wheels of the gun carriage; this gave play to the sole and the framework, separated the two platforms, and finally the breeching. ”

“ We passed a great deal of wreckage, some of it barrels of oil and gasoline. Also passed an upset lifeboat with two masts and a beautiful big life-raft. We always cruise around such objects before approaching them, as they may be submarine bait. I stood the midnight watch and sighted a light which we headed towards. It turned out to be a large American schooner, deserted and on fire. The masts were gone and it was a complete [Pg 61] wreck. We met a British Naval Reserve ship bound to Africa, a funny-looking craft for ocean work, flat-bottomed with side wheels. ”

“ All these inquiries are superfluous where the collision was caused by a vessel having the power to move or stop at pleasure in a channel of sufficient breadth, without any superior force compelling her to the place of collision. ”