William Carson (ship)

William Carson

The William Carson in 1971

Ship data flag  Canada Ship type Ferry home port St. John Owner Government of Transport Shipping company Canadian National Railway Shipyard Canadian Vickers , Montreal Build number 254 Launch November 26, 1953 Commissioning August 1955 Decommissioning June 2nd 1977 Whereabouts Sank after a collision in 1977

Ship dimensions and crew length 107 m ( Lüa ) width 21.3 m Draft Max. 5.8 m measurement 8,723 GRT

Machine system machine 6 × Fairbanks diesel engines Machine performance 10,000 kW (13,596 hp) Top speed 16 kn (30 km / h) propeller 2

Transport capacities Permitted number of passengers 262 Vehicle capacity 58 cars

Others Registration numbers IMO 53900395

The William Carson was a ferry of the Canadian National Railway put into service in 1955 and one of the largest ships built in Canada when it was delivered . The ferry, which has been used on various routes over the course of her 22-year career, sank on June 3, 1977 after colliding with a small iceberg off the coast of Labrador .

history

The William Carson emerged as until then the largest new building of the Canadian National Railway under the hull number 254 in the shipyard of Canadian Vickers in Montreal and ran on 26 November 1953 by the stack . In August 1955 the new flagship was put into service. The William Carson initially operated the route from North Sydney to Argentia near Placentia . Since 1958, the ship called at Channel-Port aux Basques instead , after a dock sufficiently large for the ferry had been built there. The William Carson , named after a regionally known politician of the 19th century, was the first ship in Newfoundland that could carry passengers and cars.

In 1976 the William Carson changed the route and was henceforth in use between Lewisporte and Happy Valley-Goose Bay . The ship remained there for the rest of its career.

On the night of June 2, 1977, the William Carson collided with a small iceberg while crossing about 12  nautical miles from the Battle Harbor fishing station on the Labrador coast. Although the ship had an ice-breaking hull, it sank in the early hours of June 3rd. All 129 passengers and 29 crew members could be disembarked unharmed. Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers and Royal Canadian Air Force helicopters brought the rescued ashore.

Contemporary newspaper articles suggested that human error may be the real cause of the William Carson's demise . A modernization of the ship in dry dock carried out in December 1976 was associated with the sinking. Accordingly, there would not have been any icebergs on the unlucky night.

Web links

• the ship on faktaomfartyg.se (Swedish)
• Entry about the ship on wrecksite.eu (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Darrell Mercer: Proud of our History - the MV William Carson. In: Marine Atlantic. October 10, 2013, accessed October 5, 2019 . 
2. ^ Casey Baldwin: The Carson sinking: ice didn't do it, bungling may have. In: McLeans. June 27, 1977. Retrieved October 5, 2019 .