FATAL COLLISION AT SEA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 2352, 6 August 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

FATAL COLLISION AT SEA.

The further details which have been trade known of the collision between the Celtic and the Britannic (says the New York correspondent of the .Standard) contain several points of interest. The accident happened 350 miles Fast of New York. Both vessels were proceeding about half speed on courses which met nearly at right angles. When first visible to each other they were about a furlong apart. Both the captains were on the bridges, and the toe whistles were sounding. Nobody feared any danger until it was impossible to escape a collision. The Celtic reversed her screw and shifted her helm, so that she delivered her blow at an angle of about twenty-five degrees instead of at right angles. The signals were given on the Britannic for full speed, in the hope of leaving the Celtic astern. If the Celtic hail struck a moment sooner, or two feet further forward, the Britannic would have sunk. As it was she sustained no vital damage. But at No. 4 hold on the port side eighteen plates were smashed, twenty frames broken, and nine deck beams damaged, a gap being made through which the waves washed like a tide. The tokens of the damage visible on the dock are appalling to landsmen. The bulwarks were curled up like so much cardboard for a length of one hundred and eighty feet. Three boats had been swept away, the davits of wrought iron, four inches thick, having snapped like sugar sticks. The bow of the Celtic was torn away to the hack of the hawser and anchor pipes. She was praclically shortened by a dozen feet; but behind the collision bulkhead she was uninjured. A scene of confusion and dismay ensued on board both vessels, but it did not amount to a panic. On the Celtic it was quickly seen that no one was hurt, and that there was no immediate peril; but the decks of the Britannic were littered with human remains and wreckage. The vessel also began to settle, and as no one could say how soon she might founder, a score of firemen seized one of the boats. The captain restored order with a display of his pistol, and sent five boatloads of women and children to the Celtic. Then the transfer was stopped, because upon conferring together the captains agreed that both boats would float, and that in company they could safely reach New York. The Marengo and the British Queen soon overtook them, and all four kept together for safety in case of a storm springing up. The gap in the side of the Britannic was stopped temporarily ; and the dead were buried. The purser states that “ several persons were killed and wounded. A clergyman on board says from personal injury he knows that twelve were killed and upwards of twenty wounded.” The passengers upon both boats have joined in a testimonial to their captains in recognition of their conduct after the collision. The following is the official list of the killed :—Jane Robinson, James Timbury, James Oreenhaigh, and Adam Johnson. The injured, none of whom are fatally hurt, arc :—William Lalor, Patrick llurke, Elizabeth Wainwright, Mary Griffin, G. A. Robinson, David Ricketts, Rose Mooney,Michael Donahue, and Mary Alien. The Britannic was delayed at the bar by reason of her drawing so much water aft—namely, six feet or so more than the usual draught. Her cargo of grain gives signs of swelling.