La Seyne (ship)
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The La Seyne was a passenger ship put into service in 1874 , which from 1876 belonged to the French shipping company Messageries Maritimes . On November 14, 1909, the La Seyne sank off Singapore after colliding with the British steamship Onda . 101 passengers and crew members were killed.
The ship
The 2,379-ton passenger and cargo vessel was on the shipyard Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée in La Seyne-sur-Mer built and ran on 25 January 1874 the name Étoile du Chili for the shipping company Germain Frères from the stack . The steamship , 105 meters long and 11.5 meters wide , had a chimney , three masts and a propeller . Constructed of iron , the Étoile du Chili was powered by a four-cylinder compound steam engine that could accelerate the ship to a speed of 13 knots. It was used for passenger and freight traffic on the Le Havre - Valparaíso route and was able to carry 109 passengers.
On September 23, 1876, the ship was bought by Messageries Maritimes and used from January 11, 1877 under the name La Seyne on the route to Egypt and Syria . In 1888, the ship underwent a renovation at the Chantiers navals de La Ciotat shipyard in La Ciotat , during which the hull , which was previously white, was painted black. The La Seyne then traveled the Far East routes.
On November 12, 1909, the ship ran with 162 passengers and crew on board under the command of Captain Joseph Couailhac in Java for a crossing to Singapore . The Onda , a passenger ship of the British shipping company British India Line , approached in the opposite direction . At 4.35 a.m. on November 14, the two ships collided 26 nautical miles from Singapore in thick fog , dividing La Seyne almost in half. It sank in a matter of minutes as its cauldrons exploded .
101 passengers and crew members, including Captain Couailhac and the Duke and Duchess Deniczki, were killed in the accident. It has been reported that numerous people in the water were attacked by sharks , some seriously injured or killed.