Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,994
Cannibalism at Sea ...
On November 17, 1874, on the former British frigate "Cospatrick", which had been converted into an emigrant ship ...
... a devastating fire breaks out in the hold about 640 km southwest of the Cape of Good Hope for an unknown cause.
The crew of the ship, which is on a journey from England to New Zealand with a total of 470 people on board, cannot extinguish the fire because the hold is filled with easily combustible materials such as tar, tow, paint, pitch and varnish.
The flames eat their way through the decks at breakneck speed, one after the other all three masts topple over - the "Cospatrick" is unable to maneuver.
The ship's captain Alexander Elmslie orders: "Everything in the boats!".
But in the meantime the "Cospatrick" has crossed and is drifting rudderlessly in front of top and rigging. The wind pushes the flames of the fire to the port side, preventing the boats from being used on that side.
In the panic now breaking out on board, it is only possible to lower two boats on the starboard side, one capsizes in the process, but can be raised again in the water!
In the first boat there are seven crew members and 25 passengers under the command of First Officer Charles Romaine.
29 passengers and crew are in the second boat led by Second Officer Henry Macdonald.
All other people - including the captain, his wife and his four year old son - go down with the wreck of the "Cospatrick"!
On the night of November 21st, boat 1 disappears in an emerging storm. Neither the lifeboat nor its occupants will ever be seen again!
Boat 2 is found, but in a terrible condition ...:
When the ship "British Scepter" under Captain Jahnke sighted the boat on November 27th, 800 miles from the scene of the accident, there were still five people living in it - of the original 29 occupants ...:
Two of them, a passenger and a seaman, die of exhaustion shortly after being rescued.
The three survivors, second mate Henry Macdonald, ship's carpenter Thomas Lewis and 18-year-old seaman Edward Cotter ...
... on the other hand are in astonishingly good shape, as the rescuers initially noted with astonishment.
The reason for this soon comes to light: Macdonald, Lewis and Cotter fed on the flesh of the other boat occupants who died in order to survive.
They are set ashore by their rescuers on the island of Saint Helena and brought back to England by another ship.
There is no prosecution for cannibalism - and other acts, such as killing other boat occupants to get "fresh" food, cannot be proven.
Anyway:
With 467 deaths, the "Cospatrick" disaster is one of the worst shipping accidents in the history of emigration.
On November 17, 1874, on the former British frigate "Cospatrick", which had been converted into an emigrant ship ...
... a devastating fire breaks out in the hold about 640 km southwest of the Cape of Good Hope for an unknown cause.
The crew of the ship, which is on a journey from England to New Zealand with a total of 470 people on board, cannot extinguish the fire because the hold is filled with easily combustible materials such as tar, tow, paint, pitch and varnish.
The flames eat their way through the decks at breakneck speed, one after the other all three masts topple over - the "Cospatrick" is unable to maneuver.
The ship's captain Alexander Elmslie orders: "Everything in the boats!".
But in the meantime the "Cospatrick" has crossed and is drifting rudderlessly in front of top and rigging. The wind pushes the flames of the fire to the port side, preventing the boats from being used on that side.
In the panic now breaking out on board, it is only possible to lower two boats on the starboard side, one capsizes in the process, but can be raised again in the water!
In the first boat there are seven crew members and 25 passengers under the command of First Officer Charles Romaine.
29 passengers and crew are in the second boat led by Second Officer Henry Macdonald.
All other people - including the captain, his wife and his four year old son - go down with the wreck of the "Cospatrick"!
On the night of November 21st, boat 1 disappears in an emerging storm. Neither the lifeboat nor its occupants will ever be seen again!
Boat 2 is found, but in a terrible condition ...:
When the ship "British Scepter" under Captain Jahnke sighted the boat on November 27th, 800 miles from the scene of the accident, there were still five people living in it - of the original 29 occupants ...:
Two of them, a passenger and a seaman, die of exhaustion shortly after being rescued.
The three survivors, second mate Henry Macdonald, ship's carpenter Thomas Lewis and 18-year-old seaman Edward Cotter ...
... on the other hand are in astonishingly good shape, as the rescuers initially noted with astonishment.
The reason for this soon comes to light: Macdonald, Lewis and Cotter fed on the flesh of the other boat occupants who died in order to survive.
They are set ashore by their rescuers on the island of Saint Helena and brought back to England by another ship.
There is no prosecution for cannibalism - and other acts, such as killing other boat occupants to get "fresh" food, cannot be proven.
Anyway:
With 467 deaths, the "Cospatrick" disaster is one of the worst shipping accidents in the history of emigration.
