Page 49 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society
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GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL      VOLUME 8

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          Incident 1: 22  November 1949
              The first accident occurred while making the Larne-Stranraer
          crossing with 16 milk tankers on board, each weighing 10 tons
          and holding between 1500–2000 gallons of milk. The force 8-9
          gale blowing at the time caused the ship to roll from side to side,
          resulting in some of the tankers sliding towards  the port side.
          Two of the tankers overturned on their side, their tanks broke
          loose from their chassis resulting in the ship developing a list of
          10 degrees. Senior Officer Leslie Ulsworth ran onto the car deck
          and decided that the immediate priority was to dispose of the
          milk in the hope of reducing the list. He opened the valves on
          four of the tanks and allowed up to 6000 gallons of milk to flood
          onto the car deck which was soon covered to a depth of 9 ins.
          The milk mixed with the seawater that had come already onto
          the car deck via the stern doors, as well as petrol from ruptured
          fuel tanks of the tankers with some of this mixture then beginning
          to drain into the engine room leading to the development of an
          extremely  dangerous  situation.  Senior  Officer  Ulsworth
          mobilised  crew  members  with  brooms  to  sweep  the  mixture
          towards the scuppers [drains], a process that took upwards of 40
          minutes to compete.

          Incident 2: 20  September 1950
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              The  second  accident  to  this  ferry  occurred  while  berthing
          stern first at Stranraer when she failed to pull up in time resulting
          in her stern striking the pier ramp even though both engines were
          going full speed ahead to try and slow her down.

              The incident was recorded in her log as follows:

              ‘At  11.24  at Stranraer  –  when  berthing  stern  first at  11.24
              hours today at the Railway Pier, Stranraer Harbour, vessel
              did not pull up in time with the result the stern came in contact

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