Maria Asumpta

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A brig with similar rigging as the last Maria Asumpta (the Swedish HMS Falken built in 1877, but which was more than a third shorter)

The Maria Asumpta was a two-masted sailing ship built in 1858, which initially served as a cargo ship and finally as a film and leisure ship. In the 1990s it was called the oldest square sailer still sailing . In 1995, it crashed on the rocky coast of Cornwall , drowning three members of the fourteen crew.

Ship history

Use and travel

In 1858 the Maria Asumpta was built as a brigantine or brig at the shipyard of Nicolas Pida in Badalona , Spain, near Barcelona, ​​for trade with the " New World " . On her maiden voyage, she brought textiles to Buenos Aires (Argentina). In the 1930s an engine was installed and the rigging that was less and less used (masts, shrouds, etc.) gradually fell into disrepair. After being renamed Pepita , the ship was renamed Ciudad de Inca in 1953 and was used until 1978, most recently without masts for shorter journeys in the Mediterranean.

In 1980 the Spanish owner wanted to sell the ship's two engines and burn the wooden hull. The British Mark Litchfield and Robin Cecil-Wright of the China Clipper Society , which had been founded to operate the traditional sailor Marques , then bought the ship for the price of the engines. Over the next 18 months, the Ciudad de Inca in Barbate , southern Spain, was completely overhauled, with large parts of the wooden hull being replaced, and then sailed with the Marques in Great Britain, Portugal and the Canary Islands . In addition to sail training missions such as the Clipper Challenge 1982 , the ship was also used for filming during this time.

For sail training tasks in foreign waters, however, an extra check of the ship's safety was actually necessary. On November 25, 1983, the Ciudad de Inca , like the Marques , received a two-year special permit. The ships were to be deployed in North America after crossing the Atlantic in cooperation with the American Sail Training Association (ASTA) . The partnership between Litchfield and Cecil-Wright for the China Clipper Society had since broken and Cecil-Wright judicially delayed the departure for several days, claiming that the ships were not seaworthy. After eliminating some deficiencies, the ships left on December 2, 1983 with the destination Tenerife . The journey continued to Antigua , where the ships were mainly used for day trips until they sailed to San Juan in Puerto Rico. From there they drove to Bermuda with the Tall Ships Race organized by the ASTA ; During the trip, a crew member had to be rescued at sea with a rescue helicopter. When the regatta participants anchored in Bermuda, a low pressure area with strong winds , which had actually been predicted for 30 hours later, passed through. The anchors of Ciudad de Inca and Marques lost their grip ( streaked ), and the Ciudad de Inca damaged its rudder so that it was temporarily out of the running for the stage on which the Marques sank and killed 19 people retired. Then she rejoined the regatta field and sailed with him to the city ​​of Québec in Canada. From 1984 to 1987 the ship stayed on the Great Lakes . To leave this, the ship would have had to use the US-American part of the St. Lawrence Seaway . The owners feared that the ship would be confiscated as security for the upcoming legal process for the sinking of the Marques . Only in 1988 did the Ciudad de Inca return to Great Britain.

There the ship was given the name Maria Asumpta again . It became the property of Mark Litchfield owned Yalefleet, Ltd. over; the China Clipper Society was dissolved. The ship has now been supported by the newly founded organization Friends of the Maria Asumpta (FMA). As a result of the sinking of the Marques , the requirements for ships for sail training had increased in Great Britain and other countries. The Maria Asumpta was no longer officially used as a sail training ship, but was legally given the status of a private yacht ; However, members of the support organization could continue to sail with no prior knowledge and were fully involved in everyday life on board. In the mid-1990s, however, Litchfield worked with the authorities to meet requirements for the Sail Training certificate. In recent years, the Maria Asumpta has been referred to as the oldest square sailer still sailing and advertised as the "oldest ship still sailing regularly". In 1994, she took of the second edition of Tall Ship reunion Armada Rouen in part.

Downfall

In the winter of 1994/95, the Maria Asumpta , including the engines, was extensively overhauled. The engine fuel was contaminated; after that, not the entire fuel supply was disposed of, but only the part in which the contamination would normally be deposited. Whether this contributed to the later ship accident could never be sufficiently clarified and was not taken into account to a large extent in the court process.

In the spring of 1995 the Maria Asumpta resumed its journeys. On May 30th, in good weather, she sailed with fourteen men on board under the command of Captain Litchfield from Swansea (Wales) along the English coast to Padstow (Cornwall). For the second half of the voyage, Litchfield sailed fairly close to shore, so he later stated that he could enjoy the view and avoid the strong tidal current. Before entering the port of Padstow, the coast pushes out again very far to the west. With a light north-westerly wind, strong seas and an unfavorable tidal current, the square sailer was unable to gain sufficient distance from the headland, which is why the master started the engine at around 16:01.

About five minutes after starting the engine, the engine failed abruptly. The ship did not succeed in breaking free from the coast under sail, and at around 16:16 the Maria Asumpta ran onto a rock under the water surface on Mouls Rock ( 50 ° 35 ′ 40.4 ″  N , 4 ° 55 ′ 27, 8 ″  W ). Only now did the captain make a mayday call and tell all crew members to get on the rocks. Nobody was wearing a life jacket at the time ; they camped out of reach below deck. Within minutes the ship had a 20 ° incline (up to 60 ° if a wave hit the ship), the rig came down, then the wooden hull broke apart. Two life rafts at the stern of the ship had inflated automatically and were floating in the vicinity, connected by a line, but were not used. While several boats and a rescue helicopter rushed to the wreck, most of the crew could jump from the bow of the Maria Assumpta in troughs on the nearby rocks; however, two people were pulled back into the sea by the next wave; a man jumped straight into the water, a woman (the smut ) stayed on the ship until it broke in two just below her. The flight engineer, who had already saved himself, jumped into the water trying in vain to help another crew member. He and another man who was dragged into the sea trying to help the flight engineer were eventually pulled out of the sea by a fishing boat. Three crew members drowned - including both women on board - and were only found in two cases after 25 days.

Legal aftermath

The captain and owner Litchfield was later due to negligent manslaughter ( involuntary manslaughter ) sentenced to 18 months in prison; the sentence was upheld on appeal . The sinking was later as an example the case of gross negligence manslaughter ( gross negligence manslaughter ) , as Litchfield chosen uses a riskier course and, had left it too much on his engine even though he knew about the contamination of the fuel. The Marques , who had been co-owned by Litchfield, lost 19 lives and had never been charged.

Ship data

The ship dates of the Maria Asumpta were, according to Parrott (2003):

Rig Brig (originally possibly brigantine )
hull Wood
Length over all (Lüa) 125 feet (38.1 meters)
Deck length 98 feet (29.9 meters)
Draft 10 feet 6 inches (3.2 meters)
width 25 feet (7.6 meters)
tonnage 127 gross tons, 72 net tons
machine 2 GEC Dorman 6 LET diesels with 175 HP each;
each drove a screw

literature

  • Daniel S. Parrott: Tall Ships Down - the last voyages of the Pamir, Albatross, Marques, Pride of Baltimore and the Maria Asumpta . International Marine Publishing, 2003, ISBN 0-07-139092-8 ( brief description of the history and reflections on the sinking of Maria Asumpta )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Parrott (p. 233)
  2. ↑ Parrott (pp. 124; 126–128; 132–133)
  3. ↑ Parrott (pp. 233-234)
  4. ↑ Parrott (pp. 234–235)
  5. ↑ “no other ship of her age still regularly sail”, quoted in Parrott (p. 233)
  6. ↑ Parrott (pp. 236–239)
  7. ↑ EWCA Crim 3290 (12th December, 1997) Mark Shirley Portal, R v. LITCHFIELD, England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions (accessed February 16, 2011)
    Parrott (pp. 239–245); (December 12, 1997). Asumpta deaths appeal fails BBC News (accessed May 13, 2007)
  8. ^ R v Litchfield CA. ( Memento of the original from February 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (1998) on Sixth Form Law: Cases - manslaughter - gross negligence (English; accessed February 16, 2011) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / sixthformlaw.info
  9. ^ Parrott (p. 231)