SS Elbe (1881)

Last updated

SS Elbe 1881.jpg
SS Elbe
History
Flag of the German Empire.svg German Empire
NameSS Elbe [1]
Owner Norddeutscher Lloyd, Bremen
Ordered1880
BuilderMessrs John Elder & Co., Govan, Glasgow, Scotland
Launched2 April 1881
In service26 June 1881
Refit1890
HomeportBremen
FateSunk in the North Sea after collision, 31 January 1895
General characteristics
Tonnage4,510  GRT
Length416.5 ft (126.9 m)
Beam45 ft (14 m)
Propulsion3 cylinder compound engine single propeller
Speed15 knots
Complement179 First Class, 142 Second Class 796 Third Class or steerage

SS Elbe was a transatlantic ocean liner built in the Govan Shipyard of John Elder & Company Ltd., Glasgow, in 1881 for the Norddeutscher Lloyd of Bremen. [2] She foundered on the night of 30 January 1895 following a collision in the North Sea with the steamship Crathie, resulting in the loss of 334 lives.

Contents

Construction and early history

The Elbe had a 3-cylinder compound engine which provided power to her single-screw propeller. She was a fast ship for her time. She was able to reach the speed of 15 knots, but small cargo capacity, along with her high consumption of coal, would soon make her uneconomical. She had a straight bow, two funnels and four masts. [3]

She was launched on 2 April 1881, the first of a series of eleven express steamers known as the "Rivers Class", as they were all named after German rivers.

After sea trials she made her maiden voyage on 26 June 1881, leaving Bremen for New York City via Southampton. The Elbe had accommodation for 179 First Class passengers, 142 in Second Class, and 796 in Steerage. She was a very popular ship with immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe to the United States and was virtually always sold out in steerage.

The Elbe spent most of the next ten years working the North Atlantic service, but she also made three voyages to Adelaide in Australia, two of which were in December 1889 and 1890.

Disaster in the North Sea

The night of 30 January 1895 was stormy. [4] In the North Sea, conditions were freezing and there were huge seas. SS Elbe had left Bremerhaven for New York earlier in the day with 354 passengers aboard. Also at sea on this rough night was the steamship Crathie, sailing from Aberdeen in Scotland, heading for Rotterdam. As conditions grew worse, the Elbe discharged warning rockets to alert other ships to her presence. The Crathie either did not see the warning rockets or chose to ignore them. She did not alter her course, with such disastrous consequences, that she struck the liner on her port side with such force that whole compartments of the Elbe were immediately flooded. The collision happened at 5.30 am and most of the passengers were still asleep.

The Elbe began to sink immediately and the captain, von Goessel, gave the order to abandon ship. Amid great scenes of panic the crew managed to lower two of the Elbe's lifeboats. One of the lifeboats capsized as too many passengers tried in vain to squeeze into the boat. Twenty people scrambled into the second lifeboat, of whom 15 were members of the crew. The others were four male second-class passengers and a young lady's maid by the name of Anna Boecker, who had been lucky enough to be pulled from the raging sea after the first boat had capsized. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Elbe, Captain von Goessel had ordered all the women and children to assemble there but no other lifeboats were launched because the ropes on the derricks were all frozen up, and so they perished along with the captain.

Within 20 minutes of the collision, the Elbe had sunk and the only survivors were the 20 people in the one surviving lifeboat. These people now had to endure mountainous seas and below-zero temperatures and they were 50 miles from land. Things looked bleak; the Elbe's distress rockets had not been seen by any passing vessels and so no one knew of their predicament. After five hours in the raging storm, their luck changed. A fishing smack from Lowestoft called the Wildflower found them. In desperate conditions the crew of the Wildflower struggled to pull the 20 survivors from the lifeboat, which had begun to break up. The skipper, William Wright, said later that the survivors would not have lasted another hour in those conditions, and believed that the only reason they had stayed alive for five hours was the expertise of the Elbe's crewmen aboard the lifeboat.

Steamship Crathie

The Crathie was a steamer of about 475 tons gross and 272 net. She left Rotterdam with general cargo for Aberdeen on 29 January 1895 carrying just 12 hands. The Craithie was also badly damaged in the collision and returned to Rotterdam flying signals of distress. When later asked why they had not stayed on to help the Elbe and her passengers, the captain, Alexander Gordon, said that he feared that his ship would sink, and in any case he did not hear any cries for help coming from the liner. It appeared to him that the Elbe was steaming away from his position. [5]

Crash cover of a letter salvaged from the sunk SS Elbe in 1895 Crash Cover Russia 1895 Ship Elbe.jpg
Crash cover of a letter salvaged from the sunk SS Elbe in 1895

Miss Anna Boecker

Of the twenty who survived the sinking, only one was a female. Anna Boecker [6] was a shy, quiet maid in the employment of an elderly lady, travelling with her employer to Southampton. In the panic and confusion of the collision, she had been unable to save her employer. She joined the terrified crush of passengers lowered into the first lifeboat. When it capsized under the sheer weight of numbers, Anna ended up in the ocean. All the others from her lifeboat clambered back onto the sinking ship. Anna was alone in the treacherous sea until the survivors in the second lifeboat spotted her foundering in the water and pulled her up to safety.

Repercussions

The SS Elbe incident resulted in a court case which took place in Rotterdam in November 1895. The court found that the steamship Crathie was alone at fault for the collision. Amazingly the captain was merely censured for leaving the disaster, a verdict that astounded the maritime world at the time. The blame was put squarely on the first mate, who had left his post at the bridge at the critical time to chat in the galley with other crew members, and therefore had failed in his job of operating the ship's warning lights. The captain, officers and sailors of the SS Elbe received no rebuke from the court either, which caused some concern amongst the German public. Each crew member of the fishing smack, Wildflower, were given, by Kaiser Wilhelm II, a silver and gold watch bearing his monogram and £5 as a gesture of thanks for saving the lives of the eighteen German citizens, an Austrian, and the English pilot. They also received other medals and gifts in the following years.

Wreck identified in 1987

In the early part of 1987, a group of Dutch amateur divers searched and located the wreck of the Elbe on the sea bed. They managed to salvage a small quantity of the glasswork and a quantity of porcelain as well as earthenware from the wreck site, which enabled them to identify the wreck.

Related Research Articles

SS <i>Andrea Doria</i> Ocean liner sunk after a collision off Massachusetts in 1956

SS Andrea Doria was a luxury transatlantic ocean liner of the Italian Line, put into service in 1953. She is widely known from the extensive media coverage of her sinking in 1956, which included the remarkably successful rescue of 1,660 of her 1,706 passengers and crew.

SS <i>Naronic</i> Cargo ship built for the White star line

SSNaronic was a British cargo steamship built in 1892 by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, Ireland, for the White Star Line. A sister ship of SS Bovic, she was built at a time the company wanted to increase its market share in the transport of live cattle on the North Atlantic route. Along with other company's ships of the same type, she was responsible for transporting goods from Liverpool to New York City, United States, and bringing back American cattle on the return trip. She also had cabins that allowed her to carry a few passengers. At the time of her entry into service, Naronic was the largest cargo ship in operation.

SS <i>Norge</i> Danish passenger liner

SSNorge was a transatlantic ocean liner that was launched in 1881 in Scotland, and lost in 1904 off Rockall with great loss of life. Her final voyage was from Copenhagen, Kristiania and Kristiansand, bound for New York, carrying passengers many of whom were emigrants. It was the biggest civilian maritime disaster in the Atlantic Ocean until the sinking of Titanic eight years later, and is still the largest loss of life from a Danish merchant ship.

SS <i>Valencia</i> 19th and 20th-century steamship

SS Valencia was an iron-hulled passenger steamer built for the Red D Line for service between Venezuela and New York City. She was built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons, one year after the construction of her sister ship Caracas. She was a 1,598-ton vessel, 252 feet (77 m) in length. In 1897, Valencia was deliberately attacked by the Spanish cruiser Reina Mercedes off Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The next year, she became a coastal passenger liner on the U.S. West Coast and served periodically in the Spanish–American War as a troopship to the Philippines. Valencia was wrecked off Cape Beale, which is near Clo-oose, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, on 22 January 1906. As her sinking killed 100 people, some classify the wreck of Valencia as the worst maritime disaster in the "Graveyard of the Pacific", a famously treacherous area off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island.

SS <i>Stella</i> (1890) Passenger ferry wrecked off the Casquets in 1899

Stella was a passenger ferry in service with the London and South Western Railway (LSWR). She was built in Glasgow in 1890, and wrecked in 1899 off the Casquets during a crossing from Southampton to Guernsey.

Sinking of the <i>Titanic</i> 1912 maritime disaster

RMS Titanic sank in the early morning hours of 15 April 1912 in the North Atlantic Ocean, four days into her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. The largest ocean liner in service at the time, Titanic had an estimated 2,224 people on board when she struck an iceberg at around 23:40 on Sunday, 14 April 1912. Her sinking two hours and forty minutes later at 02:20 ship's time on Monday, 15 April, resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history.

SS <i>Arctic</i> American transatlantic passenger and mail steamship (1850s)

SS Arctic was a 2,856-ton paddle steamer, one of the Collins Line, which operated a transatlantic passenger and mail steamship service during the 1850s. She was the largest of a fleet of four, built with the aid of U.S. government subsidies to challenge the transatlantic supremacy of the British-backed Cunard Line. During her four-year period of service, the ship was renowned both for her speed and for the luxury of her accommodation.

SS Cambria was a British cargo-passenger steamship wrecked off the north-west of Ireland on 19 October 1870 with the loss of 178 lives.

SS <i>City of Boston</i>

The SSCity of Boston was a British iron-hulled single-screw passenger steamship of the Inman Line which disappeared in the North Atlantic Ocean en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool in January 1870.

SS Hsin Wah, now also known as the SS Xinhua, was a steamship owned by China Merchants Steam Navigation Company, navigating between Canton City, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. She was built in 1921 by Napier & Miller in Glasgow. The ship was seized by pirates of Bias Bay in 1928 and saved by the SS Zhongshan. She sunk in 1929 when grounded on northern rocks of Waglan Island south-east of Hong Kong Island, with a loss of between 300 and 400 lives.

SS <i>Volturno</i> (1906) Canadian ocean liner; caught fire and scuttled in North Atlantic (1913)

SS Volturno was an ocean liner that caught fire and was eventually scuttled in the North Atlantic in October 1913. She was a Royal Line ship under charter to the Uranium Line at the time of the fire. After the ship issued SOS signals, eleven ships came to her aid and, in heavy seas and gale winds, rescued 521 passengers and crewmen. In total 135 people, most of them women and children in lifeboats launched unsuccessfully prior to the arrival of the rescue ships, died in the incident.

SS Norwich City was a British cargo steamship. She was built in 1911 as Normanby, and renamed Norwich City in 1919. She was wrecked in the Pacific Ocean in 1929. For many years her wreck was a sea mark on the atoll of Nikumaroro. The wreck is now largely broken up.

SS <i>La Bourgogne</i> French transatlantic liner that sank in 1898

SS La Bourgogne was a Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT) ocean liner and mail ship that was launched in France in 1886 and sank in the North Atlantic in 1898, killing 562 of the 725 people aboard. When new, she set a record for the fastest westbound transatlantic crossing from Le Havre to New York.

SS <i>Columbia</i> (1880) American cargo and passenger steamship (1880-1907)

SS Columbia (1880–1907) was a cargo and passenger steamship that was owned by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company and later the San Francisco and Portland Steamship Company. Columbia was constructed in 1880 by the John Roach & Sons shipyard in Chester, Pennsylvania for the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.

SS <i>Utopia</i> British transatlantic passenger steamship (1874–1900)

SS Utopia was a transatlantic passenger steamship built in 1874 by Robert Duncan & Co of Glasgow. From 1874 to 1882 she operated on Anchor Line routes from Glasgow to New York City, from Glasgow to Bombay and from London to New York City. After 1882 she carried Italian immigrants to the United States.

SS <i>San Juan</i>

SS San Juan was a passenger steamship owned by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Navigation Company. Previously, she was owned by the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and White Flyer Line. At the age of 47 years, San Juan was involved in a collision with the steel-hulled oil tanker S.C.T. Dodd. Because of her aged iron hull, San Juan was fatally damaged in the collision and sank three minutes later, killing 65 people. The loss of San Juan was strikingly similar to the loss of Columbia.

SS Maasdam was a Dutch turbine steamship that was launched in 1920 and sunk in 1941. She was the third Holland America Line ship to be named after the village of Maasdam in South Holland.

SS <i>Arctic</i> disaster 1854 ship sinking

SS Arctic, an American paddle steamer owned by the Collins Line, sank on September 27, 1854, 50 miles (80 km) off the coast of Newfoundland after a collision with SS Vesta, a much smaller French vessel. Passenger and crew lists indicate that there were probably more than 400 on board; of these, only 88 survived, most of whom were members of the crew. All the women and children on board perished.

SS Canadian was a British passenger ship which struck an iceberg and sank in the Strait of Belle Isle while she was travelling from Quebec, Canada to Liverpool, United Kingdom in 1861. Thirty-five out of 301 persons aboard the ship perished in the disaster.

<i>Loch Earn</i> (ship)

Loch Earn was a British three-masted full-rigged ship that was on a voyage from London, England to New York City, United States when she collided with SS Ville du Havre in the Atlantic Ocean on 22 November 1873. Ville du Havre sank with the loss of 226 of her 313 passengers and crew, while heavily damaged Loch Earn remained afloat before finally sinking after being abandoned by her crew on 28 November 1873 with no loss of life.

References

  1. Description and Composition of the ship
  2. "A description of the ship and incident by Jan Lettens 06/08/2007". Archived from the original on 22 June 2008. Retrieved 9 January 2008.
  3. Ship's description
  4. Description of the disaster from Suffolk County Council [ dead link ]
  5. New York Times report 1 May 1895
  6. Miss Boecker's evidence, New York Times, 27 February 1895

52°34′02″N3°26′03″E / 52.5672°N 3.4342°E / 52.5672; 3.4342