CATASTROPHE ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1187, 18 May 1872, Page 2

CATASTROPHE ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR.

The following description of the catastrophe which occurred at sea near Gibraltar, on Friday, the Bth March, by which SubLieutenants Jukes and Talbot and nine seamen of Her Majesty's screw frigate Ariadne were drowned, has been furnished to a London paper by an eye-witness : — We had a terrible accident on Friday, perhaps the worst of its kind that ever happened to the crew of a British ship-of-war. At about a quarter-past seven o'clock a man fell overboard from tho main-topraaat cross-trees. There was a heavy swell at the time, and it was blowing hard too ; but as soon as the alarm was given we hove-to, and sent one of tho cutters away to try to pick him up. At half-past eight it began to blow harder, and we had lost sight of the boat, so we got up steam, and soon after ten o'clock we sighted the boat, pulling against the wind. When she was about half -a- mile from the ship, on our starboard beam, a heavy sea capsized her; whereupou-wo atoatned as near as possible, and lowered the other cutter, the men all putting on their life-belts before entering her. She was unfortunately swamped alongside, and thus another boat's crew was seen struggling for their lives in a heavy sea. Ropes, life-belts, wooden gratings, anything that would float or yield a chance of life, were thrown over. Twenty -six men, thif teen having gone in each cutter, were then seen struggling for their lives, and a more painfully exciting spectacle can hardly be imagined. Of the second cutter's crew we succeeded in saving all but one, he being killed by the ship's rolling and striking him on the head. We then steamed up to the other cutter as quickly as possible ; but not man} were then left nut of the thirteen — at the most not more than five or six. Two men were on the keel of the capsized boat, one on the bow and one on the stern. Another was seen lashed to some spars just ahead of the cutter and a fourth was clinging to a grating. This man, having caught a rope which was thrown to him, held fast to it till he was pulled half out of the water, when he let go, and sank altogether. He was not the only man who died in the same way, and another who had managed to get near the ship and to catch hold of the .boat's falls, when she rolled towards him, was dashed against the side and crushed to death. The two men astride the keel of the cutter were saved. It was a horrible sight when men so nearly saved, and all within reach, so to speak, of assistance, sank one by one. Eleven were lost by drowning or a death more pitiabla There were the sub-lieutenants who went away in the first cutter, and there were in all nine men beside. Nearly all those who were saved were half-dead from exhaustion when they were got on board. On the following day we had a gale and shipped many seas, the ship rolling awfully, but that she always does in consequence of her narrow beam whenever there is any sea on.