WA Scholten
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The WA Scholten was a passenger ship of the Dutch shipping company Holland-America Line , which was used as an ocean liner on the North Atlantic and carried passengers , freight and mail from Rotterdam to New York between 1874 and 1887 . On November 19, 1887, the steamer sank after a ship collision in the English Channel , where 132 people were killed.
The ship
The 2,529 GRT steamship W. A. Scholten was built at the renowned Robert Napier & Sons shipyard in Govan , a suburb of Glasgow , and was launched on the Clyde on February 16, 1874 . The WA Scholten and her sister ship , P. Caland (2,540 GRT), also built by Robert Napier & Sons , were built for the Dutch shipping company Nederlandsch-Amerikaansche Stoomvaart Maatschappij NV (NASM), better known as Holland-America Line (HAL) . This shipping company was based in Rotterdam , which was also the home port of the ship. After the first ships of the Holland America Line, the Rotterdam (I) and the Maasdam (I) (both in 1873), the WA Scholten and P. Caland, launched on May 2, 1874, were the first new acquisitions.
The ship was christened WA Scholten in honor of the Dutch industrialist Willem Albert Scholten (1819-1892) . The P. Caland got its name from the Dutch engineer Pieter Caland . At the ship classification society Lloyd’s Register of Shipping , the WA Scholten was classified in the highest possible category, 1A.
The steamer was 112.16 meters long, 11.58 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 8.68 meters. It was equipped with a single chimney, a single four-bladed propeller, and three masts with the rigging of a schooner . The forged iron hull ended in a clipper stern and was divided into seven watertight compartments, each of which was equipped with two pumps . The ship had a dead weight of 2483 DWT. The two-cylinder compound steam engine could generate 1,800 hp and allowed a cruising speed of ten knots. The test drives even reached eleven knots. The passenger accommodations were designed for 24 passengers in the first, 18 in the second and 500 in the third class. The crew consisted of 67 people. Up to 557 tons of coal could be stored in the coal bunkers . The daily requirement was 36.5 tons.
On April 11, 1874, the finished ship was handed over to its owners and cast off on May 16, 1874 on its maiden voyage . Ten days later it entered New York for the first time. The WA Scholten and the P. Caland were built for transatlantic passenger, freight and mail traffic on the Rotterdam - Plymouth - New York route. In December 1881, the rescued WA Scholten in the North Atlantic , the crew of from Quebec coming British Bark Frederick , with its load of wood on his way to the UK was. The sailing ship was damaged in a heavy storm and had to be abandoned. The castaways were brought to New York. On October 20, 1887, the ship reached New York Harbor for the last time .
Downfall
On Friday morning, November 18, 1887, the WA Scholten left Rotterdam under the command of 37-year-old captain Jan Hendrik Willemszoon Taat for another Atlantic crossing to New York. There were 210 passengers and crew on board. Taat had been captain of the Edam (I) (2,950 GRT) when it sank on September 21, 1882 off Sandy Hook after the collision with the Lepanto steamer of the British Wilson Line at the entrance to the Hudson River . There were two dead.
On the evening of November 19, the WA Scholten steamed along the English south coast. At sea there was alternating thick fog , so that only a small range of vision was possible. The British coal freighter Rosa Mary , coming under the command of Captain Webster from Hartlepool , had anchored about four nautical miles from Dover around 8 p.m. due to the fog, as her captain did not want to continue the voyage to Saint-Nazaire under these circumstances. The freighter was seven or eight miles off the East Goodwin- lightship .
Suddenly one could see the lights of the ocean liner through the haze on board the Rosa Mary . The crew recognized that the other ship was heading straight for them and gave appropriate signals. Lights of another ship could also be seen out of nowhere on the WA Scholten , but there was no more time for evasive maneuvers . Around 23.00 pm, the rammed WA Scholten the starboard side of the cargo ship in Bugnähe. A loud crash broke through the ship. The WA Scholten carried a hole several meters wide in the port side of her bow , through which tons of seawater poured into the hull . The passengers, most of whom had retired to their cabins after dinner, walked on deck in nightwear . Great unrest and panic broke out; it was reported that many of those affected were praying. The boat deck was overcrowded after a very short time.
The lowering of the lifeboats began immediately , but it turned out that only the two on the port side were operational. Even these two had to be hacked freely with axes at great expense and with the help of the passengers. The officers were only able to prevent the attack on the boats with great difficulty. The lifeboats on the other side could not be lowered into the water because of the rapidly increasing list . Only after some time, almost was when the ship on the side were on the bridge fired from emergency flares.
Captain Taat tried everything to calm the fearful people down and to maintain discipline. Numerous people jumped overboard into the icy Atlantic water. 20 minutes after the collision , the passenger steamer capsized and sank bow first, throwing all the people still on deck into the sea. For some time afterwards the screams of the castaways could be heard in all directions. The Rosa Mary was badly damaged but remained buoyant and was piloted into Dover harbor at dawn. Some surviving crew members of the WA Scholten later claimed that the Rosa Mary had not set any sidelights through which the danger could have been more easily recognized.
The British steamer Ebro took 78 people in and took them to Dover, where they were housed in the local seaman's home. Many were half frozen and in shock . Several boats left Dover to search for more survivors at the scene of the accident, but only the dead were recovered. Many of the bodies were mutilated or injured, indicating that many had died from violence rather than drowning . 132 passengers and crew were killed in the disaster, including Captain Taat, the officer in charge, the chief stewardess and many women and children among the passengers. The survivors reported afterwards that the crew had only thought of themselves and pushed women and children back. Only the captain was praised for his behavior. For a while you could see the mast tips of the WA Scholten sticking out of the water.
The wreck
The wreck of the WA Scholten lies with a slight list at a depth of 31 meters. The bow broke off either during the sinking or as a result of the impact on the seabed and lies on its starboard side. In places you come across a lot of glass and dishes. The remains of the ship provide a habitat for numerous marine life.
Web links
- Summary of the key data of the ship (with picture)
- Some technical and historical data in the Clydebuilt Ships Database
- The WA Scholten in a list of wrecks off the coast of Dover ( Memento from October 6, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
- State of the wreck information in a list of shipwrecks near Canterbury (bottom)
- Extract from the WA Scholten timetable
- The WA Scholten on www.wrecksite.eu (PIC)
- THE NEW OCEAN STEAMSHIP WA SCHOLTEN (Report in the New York Times, June 6, 1874)
- WRECK OF A BRITISH BARK (report in the New York Times of February 12, 1882)
- AN ATLANTIC LINER LOST (report in the New York Times of November 21, 1887)
- THE DISASTER OFF DOVER (Reported in the New York Times November 22, 1887)
Coordinates: 51 ° 4 ′ 54 ″ N , 1 ° 24 ′ 40 ″ E