A MARINE DISASTER

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3900, 31 August 1891, Page 2

A MARINE DISASTER

Collision at Melbourne BeadsHeartrending Seems. [By Teleqbaph.] (United Press Association). Melbourne, August 29. Later,

One of the lifeboats belonging to the ill-fated steamer Gambier has been picked up three miles away from the scene of (he disaster. It contained three corpses -that of an old man, a young man and also a girl. Captain Prideaux, of tbo Easby, says :—" I never dreamt that the Gambier * ould attempt to cross me as she did, tor she was far on the Queenscliffe side, and I had no occasion to go on the Queenselide course. She went out of her courso when she crossed me."

Mr Buckley, chief officer of the Easby, stated it was his watch, and he was on tbe bridge with the captain at the time of the collision. The Easby was on her proper course, and the way the Gambier attempted to run across her bows he considered to be the most extraordinary in his experience, and he bad never known anything like it. The Easby being m ballast stood well above the Gambier, but the shock by the collision, he says, was not a very great one. He considers it was the strength of the collision bulkhead which saved the Easby, otherwise she too must have gone to the bottom. He helped to get out the boats, and get the rescuri people on board the Easby. Tbo scene he descrioes as the most pitiable one he has witnessed in the course of a long experience at sea. Mr Jackson, second officer of tbe Easby, states he was below at the time of the accident. He rushed on deck, lowered one of the boats, and, taking charge.of it, rescued a boatload from the sinking vessel. His crew aleo manned one of the Gambler's boats, which reached the Easby, and went back to the wreck.

SENSATIONAL ESCAPES. Captain Bell, of the Garabier, says: —'•! directed the sailors first to launch the working boat, and filled it witn women. When this was done, two of the engineers were placed in charge of it, while I superintended the launching of the port cutter. The starboard lifeboat was put out, but that capsized. At this time the water was up to the level of the steamer's deck, and in an instant afterwards slie sank. I was drawn down with the suction, and washed beneath the ledge. When the ship struck bottom I tried to rise but found the ledge obstructed me, but being an expert direr managed to free myself, and rose to the surface. I then divested myself of coat and ve.it, and struck out for the Easby, which had drawn off from us after the collision. There was a strong ebb tide running, and presently I found myself half a mile from the Easby. H -re I discovered a boat close to me, to which I swam. In it were five or six others. They pulled me in just as the second engineer was sweeping out to sea on a saloon box. We caught and saved him, also a woman, who wag lying on a spar. Begarding the cause of the accident all I have to say is that I steered the correct course and complied in every way with the regulations." Captain Bell complains that no boats put off from the Easby at all, and thai when he himself was saved he had to implore the sailors of that vessel to man boats and go to the assistance of persons then struggling j in the water.

Bell, donkeyman of the Gambier, had a thrilling experience. After describing the launching of the starboard lifeboat, he aays : "As the Gambier sank, her davits, sinking with her, caught a boat tore and ait and forced her and its occupants under water, and when the boat was free she came up considerably lightened of her human load, but there were still more on board than could be carried with safety, so the lifeboat capsized to rid herself of a few more, pr'ncipally women and children, who were too feeble to cling to the upturned keeJ. Bell, wLo was left behind on the vessel, wns up to the waist in water tor a time, and the steamer was going down under his feet. Before he left the ship, he looked over the side and watched the eddies formed under her by the force of suction. As he watched, he saw a boy's face upturned and white, staring out from the centre of the vortex, though already far below the surface, then a wave flowed over the spot, and the maelstrom closed. The donkeyman waited no longer but plunged in and strnek out for the Easby. Before he had gone far, someone clutched him round the neck, and bore him under a fathom or bo. He struggled to the top again with difficulty once more, but was again clutched and for the second time born down, but came again to the surface. Finding his frenzied fellow sufferer not to be reasonable, he turned on his back, and for dear life's sake let ouc a couple of kicks, which finally got rid ot his unfortunate ship mate. Swimming on he came to a woman floating with her back up and and her head down under the waves. She was dead. He got hold of a piece of hatchway and was half swimming and half drifting with ihe current, whjch was setting out of the heads, when he came across a womar, who was evidently proving a burden to a seaman who was supporting her. Bell placed his piece of hatch under ber left arm and passed his right round the woman, while the seaman changed a fish basket he was using as a life buoy, to his right hand and put his left hand under the woman's head. The seaman and donkeyman then took turns to call for help, and tried to cheer up their charge with promises that a boat would soon reach them, but the woman was speechless and foam was oozing from her mouth, while the men themselves were growing weaker, till at length a boat with two men arrived, and they were rescued.

4 PATHEffC s?ORy. A pathetic story was that of Mr Thorpe,.a passenger, who bad only been married five months. He states: —After patiently waiting round the boat being lowered it was soon crowded with passengers, and as it looked as if she would be swamped every, minute, his wife and himself decided not 1° 6° m i Q it. He adds: knowing ray wife poujd swim and trying to comfort her, I said, 'Never mind Bertha, give me your band; we will jump overboard and swim to yonder boat.' At that time I could see a boat some distance away. The wife gave me her hand and we jumped clear from the ship into the water and struck out for the boah As it .was not far away we soon got up to it, but found it nearly full of water. There were a lot of people in it, and others clinging, to the sides with their feet dangling in the water; there must have been fully 20 people either in the boat or clinging t;> it.

We were both taken in, but through some means the boat knocked up against a spar and capsized. All the occupants, who were in their nightdresses, were pitched into the sea The boat righted itself, and both the wife and myself were among those who got into it again. Twice more the boat overturned, and for the third time I righted it. Each time it righted itself, however, the number who regained it were lessened. When I secured a seat the third time I saw a lady struggling in the water near me and close to the boat's side. She called to me, ' Save me! Save me! Oh save me ! I pulled Iter into the boat, thinking it was my wife whom I had rescued- I said, ' Bertha, thank God you are here again safe,' but on closer inspection 1 found my wife was missing, and that the lady I had saved was a Salvation Arrnv lass."