Bokhara (ship)
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The Bokhara was a passenger ship of the British shipping company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) put into service in 1873 , which carried passengers , mail and cargo on a regular service from Great Britain to India and the Far East . On October 10, 1892, the Bokhara got caught in a typhoon off the Penghu Islands west of Taiwan . The engine room was flooded, the lifeboats torn overboard in the waves, and after the ship was hurled twice against a reef , it sank within two minutes. 125 passengers and crew members were killed. It was the most devastating accident in the history of P&O to date.
The ship
The iron- built 2,940 GRT steamship Bokhara was built in 1872 in the Scottish port city of Greenock at the shipyard of Caird & Company . The owner was the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. (P&O), a British shipping company headquartered in London . The Bokhara was registered there for the first few years until its home port was moved to Greenock on November 10, 1875. She had a sister ship , the Malwa (2933 GRT), which was completed in January 1873 and sold to Japan in 1894 . The two ships were new versions of P & O's passenger ship Khedive, which entered service in 1871 . Since P&O named their ships after exotic locations, the Bokhara got its name from the city of Bukhara in Uzbekistan . The two new steamers were among those ships that the shipping company added to its fleet after the Suez Canal opened.
The Bokhara was launched on December 18, 1872 and left the shipyard on March 18, 1873. It originally had a volume of 2932 GRT and 1775 NRT, but these dimensions changed after renovation work in June 1889 to 2940 GRT and 1697 NRT. On April 5, 1873, the Bokhara was completed and took its test drives. Five days later she left Southampton on her maiden voyage to Alexandria , Aden via Suez Canal and Bombay . On the way back her maiden voyage she slammed on June 21, 1873 when leaving Hong Kong a date on any map recorded rocks and ran aground in Kowloon . It was repaired in a dry dock in Hong Kong. The rock was then mapped and named Bokhara Rock . Furthermore, every Chinese seafarer was promised a sum of money if he reported a previously unknown rock.
From July to October 1880 the ship underwent a general overhaul in London, which also included new steam boilers . The Bokhara then made four trips from Bombay to Sydney . In the years 1882 and 1883 the ship sailed the route Bombay - Trieste . In February 1884 the steamer served together with the Thibet as a troop transport between Suez and Sawakin during the Mahdi uprising .
Downfall
On Saturday, October 8th, 1892, the Bokhara set off at noon under the command of Captain Charles Dawson Sams in Shanghai for a crossing to Hong Kong, where she was supposed to arrive on October 11th. Sams was considered a young, promising captain of the P&O fleet. Then the journey should continue to Colombo on Ceylon and finally Bombay. On board were 148 passengers and crew members as well as a load of 1,500 tons, which in addition to ordinary items such as tea, silk, mail and general cargo also included valuables such as 15 tons of silver coins , precious stones , cameos , golden scarabs , antiques from the Jordanian city of Petra , bronze statues , as well as books and manuscripts about the Egyptian goddess Isis . The 25 passengers were all British who lived in the British colonies of Asia, including several women and children. The crew, on the other hand, included British officers, helmsmen and stewards, more than 40 Asian seamen.
Among the passengers was the thirteen British Hong Kong cricket team who had played an interport match against Shanghai at the Shanghai Cricket Club on October 3 and are now returning to Hong Kong on the Bokhara . The team was captained by the 30-year-old first-class cricket player Captain John Dunn, who had played for the Marylebone Cricket Club .
The day after sailing, the Bokhara steamed west of Taiwan through Formosa Strait . There the passenger steamer got caught in a violent typhoon . All hatches were closed, the sails were lowered, and the speed was reduced significantly. The passengers were forbidden to go on deck. It got worse on October 10th. The Bokhara now passed the island of Sa Dau (in English Sand Island ), which belongs to the Penghu Islands (also called Pescadors). The enormous winds tore the lifeboats out of their davits and threw them into the troubled sea. Parts of the superstructure were also torn loose and thrown away. At around 9.30 p.m., after dark, three enormous breakers collapsed in quick succession over the ship, flooding the engine room and putting out the fires in the boilers . The ship could no longer be maneuvered. To calm the rough seas, oil was dumped overboard.
As the Bokhara got closer and closer to the Pescadors, the machinists tried desperately to get the machines going again. When land was made out around midnight, Captain Sam warned passengers and crew of a possible collision with the cliffs. The travelers were ordered on deck to put on life jackets , but most of them were caught in the waves and washed overboard. The gusts of wind threw the Bokhara twice against the rocks on the bank of Sa Dau, with the starboard side being torn open the second time . The Bokhara sank in two minutes.
Only 23 people survived the accident: two members of the cricket team, three officers, two European crew members and 16 Asian crew members. 125 people died. The wounded survivors spent two days in a hut on the island until they were found by local fishermen and taken to Makung . The Douglas Steamship Company's steamer Thales picked up the survivors and transferred them to the Archer- class torpedo cruiser Porpoise , which took them to Hong Kong. 34 bodies were recovered, including four women. The British consul in Shantou was tasked with arranging for the burial of the dead and the recovery of the cargo.
Aftermath
When the Bokhara did not arrive in Hong Kong, several ships were dispatched to search for her. At first only rubble was found. It was not until October 17, a week after the disaster, that news of the downfall reached Hong Kong. The investigation into the accident by the Board of Marine Inquiry (BMI) was ended after two days, as it was found that the sinking was not due to errors or omissions on the part of the crew. The crew were commended for their efforts to avoid the tragedy and limit the damage. The Hong Kong cricket community and its supporters were particularly hard hit by the calamity. The inport games were put on hold and only continued in 1897.
A stained glass window was installed in St. John's Cathedral in Hong Kong to commemorate the catastrophe. However, shortly before the Japanese occupation of the city , it was removed; his whereabouts today are unknown. The Royal Navy left in 1893 for donations of Shanghai Cricket Club an obelisk-like monument in memory of the accident build on Sa Dau. It still stands today. The island is now a training ground for the Taiwanese military; public access is prohibited. The wreck lies at a depth of about 18 m.