Yarmouth Castle (ship)
.jpg) The identical sister ship Yarmouth
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The Yarmouth Castle was an American passenger ship put into service in 1927 , which sank after 38 years of service on November 13, 1965 after a devastating fire broke out on board in the Atlantic , killing 90 people. It was one of the largest civil shipping accidents in North American waters. The tragedy triggered new legal regulations for safety at sea.
The ship
The Yarmouth Castle was built in 1927 for the American shipping company Eastern Steamship Lines and christened Evangeline . It was built at the William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia . She had a sister ship , the 111.4 meter long Yarmouth (5,043 GRT) completed in June 1927 . The cabins on the Yarmouth were numbered 100 to 400 and those on the Evangeline were numbered 500 to 800. The Eastern Steamship Lines used them in the liner service between Boston , New York and Yarmouth (Nova Scotia) .
During the Second World War , the Evangeline drove from 1942 as a troop transport between San Francisco and the Pacific theater and also served as a hospital ship . After the war, the steamer was returned to the shipping company. After it had been renovated and modernized by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation (including the installation of an automatic sprinkler system), it took up liner service between New York and the Bahamas in May 1947 . From 1948 to 1953 the ship (with a two and a half month break in 1950) was not in service. At that time it was anchored at Pier 18 in Hoboken Harbor . The Eastern Steamship Lines had no more use for the Evangeline and sold it in 1955 to the Liberian shipping company Volusia Steamship Company, for which it sailed under the Liberian flag.
In the following years the ship changed hands several times until it was sold to the Chadade Steamship Company, an American shipping company owned by the ship magnate Jules Sokoloff, in 1964, now registered in Panama . The aging ship was refurbished, fitted with new engines and renamed Yarmouth Castle . First for Caribbean Cruise Lines and then, after the bankruptcy of this company in the same year, for Yarmouth Cruise Lines , Yarmouth Castle, registered in Panama, now made cruises on the 186 nautical mile route Miami - Nassau - Havana .
The last ride
The misfortune
On Friday, November 12th, 1965, at around 5 p.m., the Yarmouth Castle cast off in Miami for the crossing to the Bahamas . The ship should arrive in Nassau the next day. On this voyage there were a total of 552 people on board, 376 passengers and 176 crew members. The ship was under the command of the 35-year-old Greek captain Byron Voutsinas. On the night of November 13, the steamer was 60 miles northwest of the Bahamas. Many passengers were already asleep, but there was still music and drinks for a large number of passengers in the ballroom on A-deck. Between midnight and 1.00 a.m., smoke was first perceived in the engine room and then in other parts of the ship. Some crew members immediately started looking for the cause. The on duty engineer informed the second officer on the bridge , which in turn woke the captain, who participated in the search. The source was found to be a fire in Cabin 610 near the front stairwell. Attempts to extinguish the fire were unsuccessful as the fire was well developed, spread very quickly and got out of control.
While the chief officer and other crew members began to wake the passengers up on their own and to get them out of the cabins, the master returned to the navigating bridge and gave instructions to trigger the fire alarm and send SOS . But it was already too late for that: the radio room was already completely on fire when the radio operator arrived there. The radio-equipped motor lifeboat and a portable emergency radio in the house of cards also fell victim to the flames, so that no emergency call could be sent. Passengers and crew were also not alerted by the fire alarm or the public address system, presumably because the fire had already destroyed the relevant circuit. The passengers were awakened from sleep by screams and steps in the hallways. Many died in their sleep from the massive smoke exposure or were unable to escape their cabins before the fire reached them. The windows of many outside cabins could not be opened. Some of the fire hoses did not have sufficient water pressure because the swimming pool was connected to the fire extinguishing system and water ran into the pool through an open valve. With the entire middle part of Yarmouth Castle in flames, passengers and crew fled to the bow and stern of the ship. At 1:25 a.m., the master gave the order to leave the ship. At this point in time, the navigating bridge was already on fire so that the corresponding signal could no longer be triggered. Shortly afterwards, the captain, the purser , the chief boatman and a few other crew members launched a lifeboat and left the ship.
The evacuation of the steamer was catastrophic. Some of the lifeboats were destroyed by the fire before they could be launched. In others, the tackles were so thickly coated with paint that they jammed in the winches and the boats could not be floated away . In the end, only six of the 13 existing boats could be launched. In the exposed lifeboats sometimes lacked the oarlocks , so that the boats could not be rowed, but with the belt are paddled had.
Numerous crew members took themselves to safety without helping the passengers. Others broke the windows of the outside cabins, dragged passengers outside and helped them to reach the rescue rope ladders on the ship's side, or even gave passengers their own life jackets . Many passengers only had to jump from the ship as a rescue, others had to squeeze through portholes to escape from their burning cabins. Deck chairs, luggage, benches and mattresses were thrown overboard to aid swimmers in the water. Some passengers who did not dare to take the plunge because they were too old, weak or in shock had to be thrown into the water to save them from the flames.
The rescue
On the Finnish freighter Finnpulp , which was about eight nautical miles ahead, the officer on watch noticed on the radar screen at around 1.30 a.m. that Yarmouth Castle was losing speed considerably, and then saw the blaze astern. He woke the captain, John Lehto, who turned immediately and headed at full speed towards the burning Yarmouth Castle . After the Finnpulp had tried three times in vain to establish radio contact with Nassau, it was able to reach the US Coast Guard in Miami at around 1:54 a.m. and report the burning ship.
The Eastern Shipping Corporation's passenger steamer Bahama Star was about twelve nautical miles behind Yarmouth Castle when Captain Carl Brown noticed a red glow on the horizon at around 2:10 a.m. He watched a burning ship and ran at full speed towards the scene of the accident.
The Finnpulp was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident around 02:15. At this point the navigation bridge of Yarmouth Castle was already completely enveloped by blazing flames. The first lifeboat that came alongside was not even half full and 20 of the 24 occupants were part of the crew. Among them was Captain Voutsinas, who offered as an excuse that he had wanted to cross over to the Finnpulp in order to be able to send an emergency call. The enraged Captain Lehto took the four passengers aboard and ordered the rest to row back and look for more survivors. Only crew members sat in the next two boats. The Finnpulp launched its two lifeboats to pick up survivors.
After the Bahama Star had also reached the scene of the accident, she launched her 14 lifeboats; they took in the people who jumped into the water from Yarmouth Castle or climbed down over rope ladders and ropes.
The Bahama Star's Captain Brown later reported that sounds of a terrible panic were coming from the Yarmouth Castle : the shattering of kicked cabin doors, glass shattering and the screams of many people. During the entire rescue operation, there was a dull tone as steam escaped through the steam whistle . According to the pilots, four US Coast Guard aircraft that flew over the site of the accident were almost completely enveloped by the smoke at an altitude of 4000 feet.
Shortly after 4 a.m., the two rescue ships picked up all of the survivors. The hull of Yarmouth Castle was glowing red at this point and the water around the ship was boiling. As a result of the extinguishing water, the ship gradually fell on the port side, until large quantities of water penetrated through hatches that had remained open when the ship was left. Shortly before 6 o'clock it capsized under the loud roar of steam boilers tearing away and set at 25 ° 55 '0 " N , 78 ° 6' 0" W at 06.03 .
A total of 462 people (288 passengers and 174 crew members) were rescued; the Finnpulp took 51 passengers and 41 crew members, the Bahama Star 240 passengers and 133 crew members. 13 people with severe burn injuries were flown by helicopter to Nassau hospitals . The two ships arrived in Nassau with the remaining survivors on November 13th. Of the 87 people who died immediately when the ship went down, only a few could be found. Three of those rescued later died from their injuries, bringing the total number of victims to 90. These included only two crew members, the Jamaican stewardess Phyllis Hall and the Cuban ship's doctor Dr. Lisardo Diaz-Toorens.
Investigation and consequences
The accident was followed by an investigation by the United States Coast Guard , which presented its 27-page report in March 1966. It was found that in October 1965 the ship had passed the mandatory regular safety inspection under the rules of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea . The fire had broken out in cabin 610 on the main deck. This room was originally a toilet room; therefore it was not connected to the sprinkler system and had two ventilation shafts that led directly to the outside through the toilet rooms on the two decks above. The room was later converted into an inside cabin for a ship stewardess, but was no longer in use because of its unfavorable location; it was located between two exhaust shafts and directly above the boiler room , so it was often too warm in it. Instead, it was used as a storage room for mattresses, damaged furniture, wood waste and the like. It was lit by a bare lightbulb suspended from a makeshift power cord. What caused the fire could no longer be determined with certainty; Possible causes named include a malfunction of the makeshift electrical installation or the storage of a mattress too close to the hot lightbulb.
The rapid spread of the fire was facilitated by the lack of a sprinkler system and the open ventilation shafts in room 610; Its catastrophic effects were mainly due to the fact that the entire interior of the ship, including the stairwells and parts of the superstructures and decks above the main deck, were made of wood that was painted with combustible paint and was therefore not fire-resistant. A chimney effect was created in the front stairwell, with the result that the corridors and cabins of the promenade and boat deck were filled with thick smoke, which prevented escape via the corridors. Most of the victims were on these upper decks.
The investigation uncovered further shortcomings: During the fire, the fire-proof doors were not closed, the sprinkler system was insufficiently dimensioned and the ship did not have the three prescribed life rafts .
The committee of inquiry praised the exemplary rescue efforts of the ships that had come to the rescue and sharply criticized the behavior of the captain and other crew members, who were accused of general failure, neglect of official duties and irresponsibility, as they had fled right at the beginning of the fire and did not stay on board, to help the passengers.
The Evangeline had no longer meets the applicable safety regulations concerning fire-retardant materials right from their recommissioning 1947th However, since a corresponding conversion would have led to a considerable increase in weight and a loss of net tonnage, it received a special permit on the condition that the main stairwells were lined with fire-resistant steel doors and that a sprinkler system was installed. These conditions were met.
The accident led to a revision of the SOLAS Convention (SOLAS), an agreement of the United Nations on maritime safety, concerning safety, fire drills, evacuation plans , technical inspections and stricter requirements on the ship's structure. Ships with more than 50 cabin seats had to be constructed entirely from steel or other non-combustible materials in the future .
In the media
The Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot released the song Ballad Of Yarmouth Castle on his 1969 album Sunday Concert , which is about the sinking of the ship.
The tragedy was also the subject of an episode of the American documentary series Shipwreck! In the 1990s . The episode was titled Floating Inferno: The Yarmouth Castle (Director: Christopher Dedrick).
literature
- Brown, Alexander Crosby. The Yarmouth Castle Inferno . 1976
- Watson, Milton H. Disasters at Sea . Patrick Stephens, 1995
- Field, Greg. Great Ship Disasters . MBI, 2003
Web links
- US Coast Guard investigation report into the sinking of Yarmouth Castle . (PDF) February 24, 1966, accessed on November 13, 2015 (English).
- Photos of the ship from a cruise in 1961. Retrieved November 13, 2015 .