Fairfax (ship, 1926)
 The structurally identical sister ship Dorchester
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The Fairfax (II) was a 1926 commissioned passenger ship of the US shipping company Merchants & Miners Transportation Company (M & MTC), which transported passengers and cargo from Boston ( Massachusetts ) to various ports further south on the American east coast .
On June 10, 1930, the Fairfax collided in the Massachusetts Bay in thick fog with the small oil tanker Pinthis . The pinthis exploded and sank. The Fairfax also caught fire but was saved. 50 people were killed in the incident, including all 19 crew members of the tanker and 31 passengers and crew members of the Fairfax . The Fairfax later changed the operator and name several times and was finally scrapped in Japan in 1956 .
The Fairfax
The 5,649-ton steamer Fairfax was at the shipyard Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News (US state of Virginia built) and ran on 12 June 1926 by the stack . She was the last completed unit in a series of three identical sister ships . The other two were Chatham (II) (lot 288, delivery May 17, 1926) and Dorchester (II) (lot 289, delivery July 17, 1926). All three ships were 112.2 meters long, 15.6 meters wide and each had a chimney and two masts .
She was able to carry a total of 314 passengers, including 302 in the saloon class (first class) and twelve in the tween deck (third class). There were three decks (two promenade decks and the boat deck). The passengers could be accommodated in four suites with private bathrooms, 38 single-bed cabins and 98 double-bed cabins. All cabins were equipped with telephones. In addition to the smoking salon and lounge, the common rooms also included a music salon and a closed sun deck.
The three ships were built for the Baltimore-based shipping company Merchants & Miners Transportation Company (M & MTC), founded in 1852 , which originally carried passengers and cargo from Baltimore to Boston, but expanded its routes and services in the decades that followed, and other ports along the US -The American East Coast, including Newport News, Norfolk (both in Virginia), Charleston (South Carolina), Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), Providence (Rhode Island) and finally even Havana , Cuba . The finished Fairfax was handed over to the owners on September 4, 1926 and left Boston on September 15, 1926 on its maiden voyage to Philadelphia.
The two sister ships of the Fairfax were both lost in World War II . The Chatham was torpedoed and sunk on August 27, 1942 as a supply ship in Belle-Isle-Strasse by the German submarine U 517 (Kapitänleutnant Paul Hartwig ), killing 14 people. The Dorchester was sunk on February 3, 1943 in service as a troop transport west of Cape Farvel off the southern tip of Greenland by the German submarine U 223 (Kapitänleutnant Karl-Jürg Wächter ) also by torpedo fire. In this case there were 675 deaths.
The Pinthis
The Pinthis was a 1,111 GRT oil tanker built in 1919 by the Tank Shipbuilding Corporation in Newburgh for the US company New England Oil Steamship Company Inc. in Wilmington (construction no. 113, registration no. 219179). The steel- built ship was 63 meters long, 10.9 meters wide and had a draft of 5.1 meters. The Pinthis was a motor ship powered by a diesel engine that worked on a single propeller. The average cruising speed was nine knots , the engine power was 159 nominal hp .
When it was launched on August 10, 1919, the ship was christened with a bottle of wine by a Mrs. George Lederle from New York . The Pinthis was the first ship to be baptized with wine after the Wartime Prohibition Act came into force on June 30, 1919. The Pinthis call signal was LTNF. In 1923 the ship was sold to the New England Oil Refining Company. Name and intended purpose have been retained.
The collision
On Tuesday, June 10, 1930 at around 5 p.m., the Fairfax, under the command of Captain Archibald H. Brooks, left Boston for another crossing to various ports to the south. 80 crew members and 76 passengers were on board. The Pinthis , under the command of Captain Albert V. Jones, set sail a little earlier that same day in Fall River (Massachusetts) for Portland (Maine). She had 12,000 barrels of fuel and a crew of 19 on board. At the time of departure, there was already thick fog in the region, which intensified during the journey.
At the level of the coastal town of Scituate on the Massachusetts coast, about midway in Massachusetts Bay , the two ships approached each other. Both could make out coastal buoy No. 4 in the fog, which both crews used to determine their position on the way to the entrance of the Cape Cod Canal . Several Fairfax survivors later reported that the ship sounded its foghorn throughout the voyage . When the two ships sighted each other between 6:55 p.m. and 7 p.m., they were only about 100 feet (about 30 meters) apart.
The Fairfax rammed the Pinthis near her stern . The Pinthis lay almost completely on its side due to the force of the collision. Within a few moments the tanker exploded below the bow of the passenger liner. As a result, the propellant charged by the Pinthis was thrown into the air and set on fire. Almost three-quarters of the Fairfax's port side faced a wall of flames that partially encroached on the passenger ship and set fire to the wood paneling and paint on board.
The Fairfax radio operator sent an emergency call , which probably did not go out because of the fire damage to the radio equipment. There was no second attempt. The Tampa , a nearby US Coast Guard ship , therefore did not know what was happening in its vicinity.
After 10 to 15 minutes, the wreck of the Pinthis broke free from the Fairfax and sank. This released the Fairfax and was able to steer itself out of the carpet of flames. She had a partially depressed bow but was still buoyant and maneuverable. At that time, however, more than two dozen passengers and crew members of the Fairfax had jumped overboard in a panic and drowned or died in the burning oil. The Gloucester (Bj. 1893 / 2,541 BRT), an older steamer from the same shipping company, took the survivors on board and brought them back to Boston.
47 people (all 19 men on board the Pinthis and 28 passengers and crew members of the Fairfax ) died at the scene of the accident. Roxbury, 22 year old passenger Ida Berkowitz and her 14 month old son Robert were recovered seriously injured, but Mrs. Berkowitz died on the way to the hospital. Her last words were "At least I saved my baby". The child died shortly afterwards in the hospital. They were the 48th and 49th casualties. The 50th and final victim was 25-year-old passenger Mrs. Katherine Marsh, who died of burns at Carney Hospital in South Boston on August 4, 1930, almost two months after the accident .
Aftermath
One takes place in Boston court hearing about the incident the crew gave Fairfax the main culprit in the accident, while the Bureau of Navigation and Steamboat Inspection of the Ministry of Commerce of the United States chaired by Dickerson N. Hoover in Norfolk the Fairfax acquitted and the crew of the Pinthis the assigned complete responsibility.
The speed at which the Fairfax steamed through the fog is still a matter of dispute. At the Boston hearing, Captain Brooks put on 11.5 knots, and at the Norfolk hearing, he put three knots on the record. The engine telegraph of the Pinthis , which was recovered by divers, was set to "halfway". The wreck of the Pinthis is 27 meters deep about six nautical miles east of Fourth Cliff at Scituate (position 42 ° 9 ′ 18 ″ N , 70 ° 33 ′ 48 ″ W ). Various artifacts recovered from the wreckage of the tanker were exhibited in 2012 at the Maritime & Irish Mossing Museum in Scituate as part of the exhibition "A Celebration of Wreck Diving by Bill Carter".
Where's the Fairfax
The Fairfax , which was damaged at the bow and partially caught on fire, was repaired and continued to be used in passenger service. In January 1942 it was taken over by the US Army and used as a troop transport until March 1946.
In August 1946 the ship was sold to the Chinese Chung Hsing Steamship Company and renamed Chung Hsing . Another sale took place in 1950 to the Far Eastern & Panama Transport Company from Panama , which operated the ship under the name Pacific Star . Most recently the ship went to PT Perusahaan Pelajaran from Indonesia (new name Bintangg Samudra ). In June 1956, the former Fairfax was finally scrapped in Japan .
literature
- Night of Terror at Buoy No. 4: The Fairfax-Pinthis Disaster . David Ball, 1998
Web links
- Bureau of Navigation Bulletin, July 5, 1930, containing notes on the Fairfax calamity
- Technical data for Pinthis in wrecksite.eu
- Key data on Pinthis on rootsweb.de
- Photos and information about Pinthis and the collision with the Fairfax
- The Fairfax and her sister ships in the list of ships built by Newport News Shipbuilding (approximately in the middle)
- More information about the wreck of the Pinthis