State of Florida
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The State of Florida was a passenger ship of the British shipping company State Line, which carried passengers , cargo and mail between Glasgow and New York as an ocean liner on the Atlantic Ocean . On April 18, 1884, the State of Florida collided with the Canadian barque Ponema in the North Atlantic . Both ships sank. 118 of the 162 people on board the steamer and 12 of the 15 crew members of the barque were killed. The survivors were rescued by a Norwegian sailing ship after two days.
The ship
The State of Florida steamship was launched in 1874 at the London & Glasgow Engineering and Iron Shipbuilding Company (usually called London & Glasgow ) in Govan, on the River Clyde . The iron hull was 113.3 m long, had three decks and was divided into six watertight compartments by five bulkheads . It was assumed that the ship would remain buoyant no matter which of the compartments were flooded. The steamer was equipped with a high-pressure cylinder and a low-pressure steam engine as well as a single propeller, which allowed the ship an average speed of 13 knots.
After its completion in 1875, the steamer initially operated under the name Queen Margaret for the Glasgow-based shipping company Queen Steamship Company Ltd. (better known as Queen Line ) the route to India and China. In 1880 the ship was sold to the State Line, which renamed it State of Florida and used it on the North Atlantic route. Many of the shipping company's ships were named after states in the United States . The State Line Steamship Company was based in Glasgow and has been operating a busy passenger traffic on the North Atlantic since 1872. The shipping company's ships steamed from Glasgow via Larne ( Northern Ireland ) to New York. The State of Florida was next to the new State of Nebraska (1880) as the best ship of the shipping company.
Downfall
On Thursday, April 12, 1884 at 9 a.m., the State of Florida set off from New York under the command of Captain John William Sadler for another crossing to Glasgow. 85 passengers and 77 crew members were on board. Captain Sadler was with the State Line from the start and had commanded the State of Indiana , which was commissioned in 1874, for eight years . The cargo included 7,483 sacks of flour , 27,634 bushels of corn , 996,522 bushels of wheat , 202 boxes of bacon , 37 barrels of beef and bacon, 50 barrels of lard , 97 barrels of oil , 2,450 barrels of sugar , 250 boxes of shoe nails, 30 barrels of apples , 27 Oxhoft tobacco , 117 packs of butter , 27 walnut logs , 401 packs of rubber and 30 sacks of clover seeds .
On Wednesday evening, April 18, 1884, the lights of the State of Florida in the middle of the North Atlantic about 1200 miles west of Ireland were sighted port ahead of the Canadian sailing ship Ponema . The Ponema was a wooden barque , which with its 749 GRT was considerably smaller than the passenger steamer. She was en route from Liverpool to Miramichi on the New Brunswick coast with her cargo and 15 crew members . With moderate winds and smooth seas, the sky was clear but dark. On board the Ponema , it looked like the State of Florida would pass them safely. The sailor had also been noticed on board the steamer. The rudder was put hard to starboard and the engines were set back to “full power” , but shortly afterwards the Ponema rammed the starboard side of the State of Florida .
When the two ships separated again after the collision, the wooden Ponema began to sink almost immediately. The captain and three sailors were the only ones who managed to get into one of the boats. After floating helplessly at sea for two days, they were picked up by the Norwegian barque Theresa . One of the sailors had died of exhaustion the day before, so that only three of the Ponema's 15 crew members survived the accident.
There was panic and chaos aboard the State of Florida . Passengers and crew in nightgowns and pajamas rushed to the boat deck, where the lifeboats were being prepared for lowering. Many were hysterical and could not assess the situation. The ship was still moving fast during the sinking. Because of the forward movement of the State of Florida , many people did not dare to go into the lifeboats. The escaping steam also drowned out the officers' commands. Only three of the existing lifeboats could ultimately be lowered into the water. Boat no. 2, which had about 30 people on board, capsized and threw its occupants into the sea. The State of Florida sank in less than half an hour. 118 of the 162 people on board (43 crew members and 75 passengers) were killed in the accident. The survivors were also rescued by Theresa two days later . 24 of them were handed over to the barque Louisa and then to the steamer Titania , which took them to Québec. A native of Glasgow stewardess Jane Macfarlane was the only female survivor from the State of Florida . At first it was not clear on land what had happened to the ship. The City of Rome the Anchor Line communicated on April 23 with a sailing ship that gave her to understand that she had survivors of a sunken ship on board. However, the message broke off before it could be recorded which ship it was. The steamer Devon , en route from New York to Bristol , found two empty state of Florida lifeboats on April 27, nine days after the sinking . The first suspicions about the fate of the State of Florida included the collision with an iceberg and the explosion of dynamite on board the ship.
examination
The Board of Trade launched an investigation into the accident, chaired by Attorney and Commissioner of Wrecks Henry Cadogan Rothery, held in Glasgow and heard from 13 witnesses. The State of Florida First Officer , James Thomson, had his license to operate a ship revoked for six months. At the time of the collision, he was in command of the steamer. He was accused of having caused the clash through negligence and a lack of lookout.
Web links
- The State of Florida
- Investigation report of the Board of Trade dated June 25, 1884
- State Line shipping company ( Memento from April 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- A Mystery of the Ocean ( New York Times report , May 4, 1884)
- The News in This City (report in the New York Times, May 4, 1884)
- A Mystery of the Sea (Report in the New York Times, May 6, 1884)
- The Lost State of Florida (Report in the New York Times, June 26, 1884)