« More on Madrid | Main | The power of advertising ... »
March 13, 2004
The tug it was that sank ....
This photo was taken in East London (South Africa) harbour in 1960 after the tug F Schermbrucker had been holed while maneuvering the Ellerman liner City of Port Elizabeth through the harbour entrance in a tricky wind and sea state. There were two tugs involved – precisely because of the weather – and the wind and a rogue sea combined to push the three onto the Western breakwater. The Schermbrucker, on the liner’s Port side, took the brunt of it, but the City of Port Elizabeth did not escape entirely undamaged either – she got a chunk taken out of her hull plating by one of Schermbrucker’s screws as the tugs fought to extricate themselves.
The tug F Schermbrucker settles to the bottom after being holed during harbour operations rto bring in the Ellerman liner City of Port Elizabeth in 1960.
While the second tug, John X Merriman, on the liner’s Starboard side, took the errant liner under control, Schermbrucker caste herself loose and took off up the river for the graving dock at full power, settling slowly by the stern. She had been holed next to the watertight bulkhead between her engine room and the after coal bunkers and was flooding faster than even her big Merryweather fire pump in salvage mode could cope with. She made a spectacular passage up the river towing a huge wash and displaying a cockscomb wake, but, alas, the dock could not be flooded and opened in time to receive her. The noise as she passed up the river, venting steam, and sounding her steam sirens in warning was indescribable.
She made it to the repair berth, and settled gracefully to the bottom. Her Master and his Mate stepped from the bridge wing to the quay, while the engineers swam out of the engine room skylights and the stokers escaped up the funnel after drawing the fires and venting the steam from the boilers. The entrance cut to the dock can be seen to the right of the picture, and the Pilot Cutter is berthed against one of the dock entrance shoulders. Another tug, the E S Steytler, was actually in the dock under maintenance and with some of her plating open – she would also have been sunk had they flooded down before she could be made watertight!
The City of Port Elizabeth was docked and patched the next day; the Schermbrucker was raised and repaired six months later after a very interesting and innovative salvage operation. She finally went to the breakers in 1981.
Posted by The Gray Monk at March 13, 2004 06:27 PM