Tragedy in Zeebrugge
The wreckage of the unfortunate ferry, lying on its side. Photo Collection of Leo van Ginderen
In the late afternoon of March 6, 1987, the ferry Herald of Free Enterprise, owned by the British shipowner Townsend Thoresen (now P&O European Ferries), left the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. The ship, along with two twin ships, served the line linking the continental ports of the English Channel with Dover. Due to the fact that the shipowners maintained three shift crews, the ships were operated with a very high intensity. Assuming all passenger seats are occupied, they will be able to transport nearly 40 people across the canal on the Calais-Dover route. person during the day.
The afternoon cruise on March 6 went well. At 18:05 "Herald" dropped longlines, at 18:24 she passed the entrance heads, and at 18:27 the captain began a turn to bring the ship to a new course, then it was moving at a speed of 18,9. knots Suddenly, the ship lists sharply to port by about 30°. The vehicles taken on board (81 cars, 47 trucks and 3 buses) quickly shifted, increasing the roll. Water began to break into the hull through the portholes, and a moment later through the bulwarks, deck and open hatches. The agony of the ferry lasted only 90 seconds, the listing ship leaned against the bottom of the port side and froze in that position. More than half of the hull protruded above the water level. For comparison, we can recall that during the Second World War, only 25 ships of the Royal Navy (about 10% of the total losses) were sunk in less than 25 minutes ...
Despite the fact that the disaster occurred only 800 meters from the headwaters of the harbor in relatively shallow water, the death toll was appalling. Of the 459 passengers and 80 crew members, 193 people died (including 15 teenagers and seven children under the age of 13, the youngest victim was born just 23 days earlier). This was the largest peacetime loss of life recorded in the annals of British shipping since the sinking of the auxiliary patrol ship Iolaire on January 1, 1919, on the approaches to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides (we wrote about this in The Sea 4). /2018).
Such a large number of casualties was mainly due to the sudden roll of the vessel. Surprised people were thrown back to the walls and cut off the path of retreat. The chances of salvation were reduced by water, which penetrated the hull with great force. It should be noted that if the ship had sunk at greater depths and capsized, the death toll would certainly have been even higher. In turn, the biggest enemy of those who managed to leave the sinking ship was the cooling of organisms, hypothermia - the water temperature was about 4 ° C.
The rescue operation
The sinking shuttle automatically sent an emergency call. It was recorded by the Emergency Coordination Center in Ostend. The crew of a dredge working nearby also reported the disappearance of the ship's lights. Within 10 minutes, a rescue helicopter was raised into the air, which was on duty at a military base near Zeebrugge. A few minutes later another car joined him. Spontaneously, small units of the port fleet went to the rescue - after all, the disaster occurred almost in front of their crews. Radio Ostend called for participation in the action of specialized rescue teams from the Netherlands, Great Britain and France. Preparations were also made to bring in crews of divers and divers from the Belgian Navy, who were flown to the crash site by helicopter just half an hour after the ferry capsized. The mobilization of such a serious force saved the lives of most of those who survived the critical 90 seconds of the ship's sinking and were not cut off by the water inside the hull. The helicopters that arrived in the crash area picked up the survivors, who, on their own, through the broken windows, got to the side of the ship sticking out above the water. Boats and boats picked up the survivors from the water. In this case, time was priceless. At a water temperature of about 4 °C at that time, a healthy and strong person could stay in it, depending on individual predispositions, for a maximum of several minutes. By 21:45, rescuers had already landed 200 people ashore, and an hour after entering the hull's unflooded premises, the number of survivors exceeded 250 people.
At the same time, groups of divers went to the sunken parts of the ship. It seemed that their efforts would not bring any result, except for the extraction of another corpse. However, at 00:25, three survivors were found in one of the rooms on the port side. The space in which the catastrophe found them was not completely flooded, an airbag was created in it, which allowed the victims to survive until help arrived. However, they were the last survivors.
A month after the crash, the wreckage of the ferry, which blocked an important fairway, was raised by the efforts of the well-known company Smit-Tak Towage and Salvage (part of Smit International AS). Three floating cranes and two rescue pontoons, supported by tugs, first put the ferry on an even keel, and then began to pump water out of the hull. After the wreck regained its buoyancy, they were towed to Zeebrugge and then across the Westerschelda (the mouth of the Scheldt) to the Dutch shipyard De Schelde in Vlissingen. The technical condition of the vessel made renovation possible, but the shipowner was not interested in this, and other buyers did not want to choose such a solution. Thus, the ferry ended up in the hands of Compania Naviera SA from Kingstown in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, which decided to dispose of the ship not in Europe, but in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Towing was carried out on October 5, 1987 - March 22, 1988 by the Dutch tug "Markusturm". There were no emotions. The towing crew first survived the Great Storm off Cape Finisterre, although the tug was broken, and then the wreckage began to take on water, forcing them to enter Port Elizabeth, South Africa.
Shipowner and ship
The Townsend Thoresen Shipping Company was created through the purchase in 1959 by the Monument Securities group of the Townsend Car Ferries shipping company and then of the Otto Thoresen Shipping Company, which was its parent company. In 1971, the same group acquired the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company Ltd (branded as Transport Ferry Service). All three businesses, grouped under European Ferries, used the Townsend Thoresen brand name.
