| Quick, list the top three shipwrecks in history.
Titanic, Lusitania and ....?
 The Empress of Ireland was built in Scotland to take part in the
lucrative cross-Atlantic market. The Empress was so fast that it
could routinely make the cross in 6 days.
One fateful day in 1914 the Empress left Quebec City, with passengers and crew
totaling more than 1400 souls, bound for Liverpool, UK. A few
hours after they left port the Empress was struck broadside by a
Norwegian collier, the Storstad. The Empress sunk in less that 14
minutes taking 1078 to a watery grave. Only 300 bodies were ever
found.
What happened to cause the collision is still a Mystery of Canada.
The two vessels actually saw each other when they were about 3 miles
apart, but the Empress then moved into a fog bank which had moved onto
the waterway from shore. When the
Empress emerged from the fog, it was struck by the Storstad. The
bow of the Storstad ripped a long gash on the starboard side between the
two funnels and just a few feet aft of watertight bulkhead No. 5,
separating the forward and aft boiler rooms. The Storstad was
estimated to have penetrated 12 to 15 feet into the Empress' side
between Shelter Deck and the double-bottom hull on Orlop Deck.
Water rushing in listed the vessel very quickly. Within 3 minutes
the lighting failed and 11 minutes later the Empress slipped under the
surface and came to rest on its starboard side at about 145 feet.
In 1914 salvage divers using the ship's deck plans exploded a section
out of the port side of the Empress, where they removed mail and
salvaged the purser's safe. Today, experienced scuba divers dive the
wreck during the summer months when conditions are at their best.
|
