Egypt (ship)
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The Egypt was a passenger ship of the British shipping company Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O) put into service in 1897 , which carried passengers , freight and mail from Great Britain to India . On May 20, 1922, the Egypt sank after a collision with a freighter off the French coast, killing 87 people. It was one of the largest shipping accidents in the English Channel between the two world wars and one of the worst accidents of the P&O shipping company in peacetime. The recovery of their gold and silver cargo in the 1930s was one of the most extensive recovery operations to date and set new standards for recovery equipment and techniques.
period of service
The 7,912-ton steamer Egypt was at the shipyard Caird & Company in the Scottish town of Greenock built and ran on 15 May 1897 by the stack . The steamer was 152.3 meters long, 16.5 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 7.5 meters. The triple expansion steam engines developed 11,000 PSi and accelerated the ship to 18 knots. In the ship's hull nine were bulkhead installed, were installed in the 23 watertight doors. The rescue equipment included 18 life buoys , 953 life jackets and 18 lifeboats with space for 860 people.
In September 1897 the steamer went on maiden voyage . The Egypt served the Tilbury - Port Said - Bombay route , but was also occasionally used for trips to Australia . She was the third in a quintet of sister ships that P&O commissioned for their passenger and freight traffic to Asia. The others were the China (1896), the India (1896), the Arabia (1898) and the Persia (1900). The India , Arabia and Persia were sunk by German submarines during World War I.
On a voyage in 1910, the Egypt brought the British Princess Louise of Egypt back to Great Britain. During the First World War , the Egypt was named HMHS No. 52 (Her Majesty's Hospital Ship No. 52) was drafted into military service and converted into a hospital ship that cruised in the Mediterranean and could accommodate up to 461 patients. It served this purpose from August 1915 to June 1919. In 1921, the Egypt returned to the service of P&O.
Downfall
On Friday, May 19, 1922, the Egypt ran under the command of Captain Andrew Collyer in Tilbury with destination Bombay via Marseille . There were 44 passengers (14 first class, 30 second class) and 294 crew members on board. Most of the passengers were British, but there were also three Americans among them. A large part of the crew were Indian. The freight included five tons of gold and ten tons of silver , valued at 1,083,527 pounds sterling (in terms of monetary value at the time ). On the evening of May 20, the steamer ran into a bank of fog in the English Channel off the French island of Ouessant . The ship was 22 nautical miles from the Breton coast and was on its way to the Bay of Biscay . Captain Collyer slowed down. Shortly afterwards the foghorn of another ship could be heard, which seemed to be approaching quickly. However, the fog was so thick that the crew could not assess from which direction the signal was coming and how far away the ship was.
At 7.30 p.m., just as the gong was sounding for dinner on board, the bow of another ship suddenly appeared on port side , which was headed straight for the Egypt and quickly approached. It was the 1,383 GRT French cargo steamer Seine , which was coming from La Rochelle to Le Havre . Only 15 seconds after the sighting, the freighter rammed the larger passenger steamer on the port side between the funnels. The bow of the Seine , which was constructed for ice breaking, buried itself deep in the hull of Egypt , the flip side accepted, but went on ride and immediately out of sight of his disappeared. Despite its badly damaged bow, the Seine followed the struck steamer, which sank at high speed.
There was great confusion and panic aboard the Egypt ; a rush on the lifeboats began . Many crew members jumped into the boats without helping passengers. Due to the rapidly increasing list, launching the boats was almost impossible. In the end, many boats and rafts were cut loose so that they could swim free after the boat deck was submerged. In their panic, numerous people jumped overboard. Captain Collyer stayed on the bridge to the last . The Egypt sank 20 minutes after the collision . 87 people (71 crew members and 16 passengers) lost their lives as a result of the accident. The Seine picked up the survivors and brought them to Brest . After the news of the collision had reached Brest by radio , the tugs Vaillante and Cannonière were sent to the scene of the accident, but they could only retrieve corpses.
The ship's doctor Dr. Brenner, a number of Indian sailors, British missionary and headmistress Ethel Rhoda McNeile, who refused a place on a lifeboat, and two Americans, Mrs. Minnie Lois Sibley from Toledo, Ohio and Miss Virginia Margaret Boyer from Pittsburgh , who were on their way to India to work as missionaries there. The first radio operator Arthur W. Hardwick, who remained at his post to the end, also went down with the ship.
examination
The incident was investigated by a British Board of Trade investigative committee chaired by lawyer and marine expert Butler Aspinall . In September 1922 the committee published its findings: Captain Collyer was found guilty of failure to maintain sufficient discipline and order among the crew, and officer in charge Charles Walter Wainwright was found guilty of failing to coordinate the evacuation. Collyer was suspended from his post as captain for six months. The behavior of the crew in general was heavily criticized.
The Board of Trade also incriminated the captain of the Seine , le Barzic, who it accused of being late to aid the survivors. The shipping company P&O was accused of a lack of discipline on its employees. The Board of Trade advised her to learn from the accident.
Recovery of the cargo
The valuable gold and silver cargo from Egypt was almost completely recovered in the 1930s. Between 1923 and 1928 there were repeated attempts by French and Swedish rescue companies to locate the wreck in order to be able to carry out rescue operations. The wreck could be located, but all rescue attempts were unsuccessful.
In June 1929, the Italian company Società di Ricuperi Marittimi (“Sorima”), under the direction of Giovanni Quaglia, accepted the contract from the British insurance company Lloyd's of London to recover the bars. In August 1930 Quaglia made the first attempt with the rescue boat Artiglio . After 15 months, he found the wreck, which lay upright on the sea floor at a depth of 118 meters. The masts and chimneys were also still upright. By means of explosions, the company managed to recover 95% of the bars from the holds by 1933. The cost of the action was £ 200,000.
In 1987 and 2001 further expeditions to the wreck took place, but only a few bars were found.
Web links
- The Egypt in the Clydesite Ships Database
- Detailed summary of the last trip
- Entry in the wreck database
- Official investigation report of the accident by the Board of Trade, September 1922 ( Memento of August 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
- Illustrated description of the ship, the sinking and the salvage ( Memento from February 25, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
- Illustrated description of the salvage expeditions to the wreck of the Egypt , part 1 ( Memento from February 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Illustrated description of the salvage expeditions to the wreck of the Egypt , part 2 ( Memento from February 16, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
Footnotes
- ↑ Searching for and attempting to dive on the wreck of the "Egypt". In: shipyard - shipping company - port. Volume 8, No. 3, 1927, p. 50.
Coordinates: 48 ° 3 ′ 32 " N , 5 ° 16 ′ 14" W.