RMS Atlantic
Wood engraving from Harper's Weekly newspaper , April 1873
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The RMS Atlantic was a 1871 posed in service passenger ship of the British shipping company White Star Line , which for the transatlantic passenger service between Liverpool and New York was used. She was the second ship of the then still young White Star Line and the first that she lost.
On April 1, 1873, the Atlantic had to shorten a regular crossing to New York due to a lack of coal and headed for Halifax in Nova Scotia (Canada). On the rocky coast of Meagher's Island, the ship hit an underwater rock and sank, 545 passengers drowned, including hundreds of women and children. The sinking of the Atlantic was the worst shipping accident on the North Atlantic to date and was only exceeded 31 years later by the Danish steamer Norge (625 dead). It is the second largest loss of life on a White Star Line ship after the Titanic .
The ship
The Atlantic was built at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast , Northern Ireland , where the White Star Line commissioned all of its passenger ships. She was the sister ship of the Oceanic (I), the Baltic (I) and the Republic (I). These four ships were the first ships of the still young White Star Line, which opened and established their passenger and mail traffic between Great Britain and North America . As these ships proved to be very profitable and successful, the Adriatic (I) and the Celtic (I) were added shortly afterwards .
The 3,707 GRT steamship was launched on December 1, 1870 and completed on June 3, 1871. Five days later, the Atlantic left Liverpool on her maiden voyage via Queenstown to New York. After the Oceanic (also 3707 GRT) put into service in 1871, she was only the second ship of the still very young White Star Line, which had been founded in Liverpool in 1869 by the ship magnate and former director of the National Line , Thomas Ismay . She was built of steel and had three decks and four masts equipped with sails . The Atlantic was equipped with ten lifeboats and six watertight doors . The four-cylinder steam engines developed 600 hp and accelerated the steamship to a maximum speed of 14.5 knots (26.9 km / h ).
The Atlantic and her sister ships were very comfortably equipped in accordance with the company maxim of the White Star Line and were more luxurious than most other steamers of their time. The first-class dining room, with velvet- covered chairs , was 24 meters long and 12 meters wide. The walls of the cabins and lounges were covered with damask and decorated with gold leaf , and a lot of teak paneling was used. The Atlantic could accommodate 166 first class passengers and 1000 third class passengers.
The last ride
Departure from Liverpool
On Thursday, March 20, 1873, the RMS Atlantic ran under the command of Captain James Agnew Williams in Liverpool for her 19th Atlantic crossing to New York. In addition to 143 crew members, there were over 1000 passengers on board. The following day, the Atlantic dropped anchor in Queenstown on the south coast of Ireland, where 250 passengers left the ship. The freight on this voyage had a monetary value of £ 50,000 at the time . The ship itself was worth about £ 500,000. When the ocean liner then headed for the open Atlantic , 833 passengers (with a crew of 957 people in total) were still on board. There were 156 women and 189 children among the passengers (including two infants who were born during the journey).
On March 26, the ocean liner off Terence Bay on the Chebucto Peninsula (Nova Scotia) was caught in an Atlantic storm that lasted for several days. On March 31st, Captain Williams decided to make a stop in Halifax to replenish the coal reserves. Due to heavy seas and strong winds , the ship was pushed about 12 nautical miles off course without the crew or passengers knowing about it and thus missed the entrance to the harbor bay of Halifax .
Visibility was severely limited, so the speed was reduced to 12 knots as the Atlantic passed the coast of Nova Scotia. Around midnight we went to the bridge on the assumption that Sambro- shortly Lightship reach. The Atlantic was at this time about 460 miles from Sandy Hook , the entrance to the Lower New York Bay , away.
Collision off Meagher's Island
At around 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday April 1, the Atlantic rammed the underwater reef of Marr's Rock on the rocky coast of Meagher's Island near Cape Prospect . Most of the passengers were asleep in their cabins at this point, while dozen were still drowning below deck. Many died when the completely overcrowded main staircase was flooded. Lifeboats were immediately launched , but most of them were washed away due to the heavy seas or smashed against the rocks. Due to the force of the high waves, the ship was raised several times and thrown against the cliffs again. Panicked passengers and crew overcrowded the boat deck, with many climbing up the ship's rigging . Numerous people were washed overboard by the waves. Emergency rockets were fired every 60 seconds.
The ship was stuck on the rocks only 50 meters from the shore, so that the third officer of the Atlantic , Cornelius L. Brady, with the help of other crew members, could establish a rope connection to the land. Dozens of people were saved in this way. Fishermen from nearby towns quickly took notice of the disaster and came to the aid of the castaways . Three lifeboats came from the land to the scene of the accident and took in survivors. After the fifth impact with the rocks , the Atlantic capsized and sank.
A total of 545 people were killed in the sinking of the Atlantic , including all women on board and all but one children. 412 people survived, including almost all of the crew. Only twelve of the 31 first-class passengers were rescued. Among the fatalities were around 200 English and 70 Irish, the remaining passengers were mostly emigrants from other European countries.
Aftermath
336 of the survivors were brought to Halifax. On April 3, she was sent by train to Portland in the US state of Maine and then to Boston , where the mayor of the town , Henry L. Pierce , in the Faneuil Hall in the presence of many celebrities of the city, a banquet was in honor of the survivors .
The accident was followed by an official investigation , chaired by Edward M. Macdonald, then Head of Customs for the City of Halifax , on the recommendation of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Maritime Affairs . In the final report of the commission of inquiry, Captain Williams and his officers were blamed for the accident. It was mainly criticized that the Atlantic seemed to have left Liverpool with too little coal. Williams claimed to have 996 tons of coal on board the departure, which was 260 tons more than was required for the trip to New York. By March 31st, the supply was only 127 tons, so Williams decided to stop in Halifax to reload. The crew also reported errors in the ship's navigation. Captain Williams confused Sambro Light with Devils Light, which was considerably further west, and thus set his ship on the wrong course. It was also criticized that, despite the darkness and poor visibility, no additional lookouts were manned.
Most of the recovered bodies were buried in mass graves in the nearby Lower Prospect community. 277 more were on the cemetery of the church buried by Sandy Cove, where today a memorial stone commemorates them. Since the wreck of the Atlantic lies in very shallow water, many objects have been recovered from it over time. Many of these are on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. The SS Atlantic Heritage Park and Interpretation Center memorial was built in Lower Prospect , where many artifacts from the wreck can also be seen.
Web links
- Atlantic website
- Report of the sinking of the Atlantic in The Ships List
- Detailed description of the accident at Norway Heritage
- "On the Rocks: Shipwrecks of Nova Scotia": The Atlantic in the Marine Heritage Database
- Entry in the Miramar Ship Index
- Passenger lists of the last trip Part I
- Passenger lists of the last journey Part II
- Pictures of the Atlantic
- AN AWFUL DISASTER ( New York Times report of April 2, 1873)