Sinking of a Steamer.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1034, 14 May 1883, Page 2

Sinking of a Steamer.

SIXTY-FIVE LIVES LOSTThe London correspondent of the Post writes : —The winter of 1882 3 will long be remembered for the violence of its storms and the unparalled number of great maritime disasters that took place. Hardly a week passes now-a-days but we hoar of some appalling wreck or collision. Only last month the papers were full of • Ghastly Details about the sinking of the Cimbria and Kmmare Castle, and to-day mercantile folk can talk of nothing else but the extraordinary disaster to the Navarre. This vessel was a screw steamer about tbe size of your Union Company’s Penguin, and traded between Leith and Denmark. She left Copenhagen for a Scotch port on the 2nd March with 81 souls aboard, the crew numbering. 21, and the remainder being passengers, mostly through immigrants for the United States. There were also 70 head of cattle on dock. The weather was wet and boisterous from the first, and it did not become positively dangerous till the 3rd inst., when a severe gale sprang up which developed into a perfect hurricane, blinding showers of sleet and snow prevailing most of the night. On Tuesday morning, the 4th, the Navarre shipped- a tremendous sea, which literally Swept tlie Deck clean, carrying away the bulwarks, cabin skylights, boats, and compass. The water poured below both into the hold and cabins, and the vessel soon showed a dreadful list to port. A survivor says the weather throughout this awful day was terrible ; that tons of icy water swamped the little steamer constantly, and that on Wednesday morning the fires were put out. After this the crisis was not long delayed. Both the fore and aft compartments quickly became flooded, and about noon the Navarre sank with,all on board. A short time before the steamer went down a German fishing vessel hove in sight, and several of the sailors of the Navarre managed to launch and man one of the remaining boats. Without in the slightest degree regarding the Agonising Appeals made by tbe passengers, many of whom were women, they pulled to the smack, scrambled on board, and villainously sent their boat adrift. Tbe fishing vessel had none, and could not approach near enough to render any assistance, but an attempt was made on the Navarre to man tbe last remaining lifeboat. Into this about 15 men jumped, caring only for their own safety. The result was what might have been anticipated—the boat got swamped, and her occupants disappeared under the side of the steamer. Soon after this two other fishing smacks, seeing the signals of distress, bore down and endeavoured to give aid. Only one of them, the Sir Stafford Northcote, had a boat, and this the skipper, an Englishman, named Kilker courageously launched. Unfortunately, the painter snapped before the little cockleshell (for it was no morej could be manned, and once more the despairing souls on tbe Navarre saw their surviving chance drift helplessly away. Soon after the last named catastrophe, the steamer sank. The smacks did their utmost to pick up the drowning passengers, but owing to the fearful sea, which ran mountains high, the Sir Stafford Northcote could only save five pelTple, and the other smacks one. This, with the ten souls who escaped to the German vessel, brings the number of survivors to 16, the lot lost being 65. This terrible sacrifice of life was undoubtedly owing mainly to the helplessness and incompetence of the captain, who 'lost all self-control directly things began to look bad and primed himself too freely with whiskey. When All liojje was Lost the passengers are said to have satisfied themselves with clinging to what rigging remained, and waiting for the end. As the Navarre was going down, ten persons jumped overboard. She sank with about 25 or 30 persons on board, all standing, as the narrator said, “ easy and strangely quiet” to the very last minute. Those of the saved who witnessed these terrible moments sa.y they heard not a single cry from anybody. Five minutes after the steamer went down nothing was seen of the disaster but broken wood and wreckage.