Page 49 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

GREYSTONES ARCHAEOLOGICAL & HISTORICAL SOCIETY JOURNAL VOLUME 8

nd
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
th
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

45