Survivors of the Trevassa ship disaster, at Gravesend, Kent in 1923 (Image: GETTY)
After sailing in lifeboats for 25 days, most of the men forced to abandon the sinking SS Trevassa would survive… but not all. The single-screw cargo vessel was built in Germany in 1909.
During the First World War she was interned in the Dutch East Indies and bought in 1920 by the St Ives-based Hain Steamship Company.
The new British owners installed six wooden lifeboats and the vessel was reconditioned. Her captain was a Malta-born, 34-year-old Welshman called Cecil Foster.
During First World War naval service he was torpedoed twice in 16 hours on two different ships and spent nine and a half days on a boat in the Atlantic before landing in Spain. Twelve of the 31 men in that boat died from cold and exposure.
But it was this experience that would serve him so well in the ordeal to come.
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Capt Cecil Foster, left, whose leadership was pivotal to the survival of so many (Image: GETTY)
On the first leg of her last voyage from Liverpool to Canada, Trevassa met a mid-Atlantic hurricane but managed to steam through it with little difficulty.
She sailed through the Panama Canal and at Port Pirie, South Australia, loaded zinc concentrates bound for Antwerp, via Fremantle and Durban into four holds.
After coaling at Fremantle, Trevessa sailed on May 25, 1923, for Durban. It soon ran into a gale which only slowed her slightly.
But on June 3 huge waves tore the two port lifeboats from their lashings, breaking the door of the chief engineer’s cabin.
Captain Foster eased the speed and turned the ship’s head to the seas while the two boats were secured.
The weather became worse. The battered ship suffered continuous straining which caused seams to open in the shell plating, the outer-most structure of the hull.
That midnight Michael Scully, a 62-year-old able seaman, reported the vessel was taking in water and men in the forecastle, the forward part of the ship, could hear water in the hold beneath.
The bulkhead had a bulge as big as a dinner plate and water was squirting through a six-inch crack. Disaster would come suddenly.
At midnight everything appeared to be in order, but just an hour later Captain Foster knew his ship was doomed and had ordered the wireless officer to send the SOS, giving the ship’s position.
Chief steward RH James and his assistants set to work loading provisions on the two serviceable starboard lifeboats, No.1 and No.3, running the gauntlet of the heavy seas breaking onto the deck.
Six cases of condensed milk and 12 tins of biscuits were divided between the two boats, along with cartons of cigarettes and tobacco, water, charts and sextants.
In the dark and amid 50ft waves, the lifeboats were lowered and the crew jumped or slid down ropes into them. The captain was the last to leave the stricken ship.
Half an hour later Trevassa stood on its end and then plunged into the deep waters – less than three hours after the first warning signs of impending disaster.
Other vessels responded to the SOS call but were unable to find any survivors, just a broken oar and an upturned boat.
For several weeks it was assumed all men on board had perished. Instead, Foster had embarked on an epic voyage of survival.
At daylight the two boats were lashed together and the first day was spent overhauling gear and estimating the chances of being picked up by rescue vessels.
No smoke had been seen by 5pm and the boats had drifted north and east.
Foster decided that the chances of being picked up would be as good if the boats sailed westward as if they drifted.
The course would be towards Rodriguez and Mauritius, more than 1,700 miles away. The Australian mainland was closer, but they would have had to battle against prevailing winds to reach it.
The compasses proved useless so Foster and his officers had to navigate by the stars.
Twenty men were in No.1 boat, including 13 Britons, two Burmese, two Arabs, two Portuguese West Africans and one Indian. The chief officer’s boat, No.3, carried 24 passengers – 18 Britons, one Swede, one Afghan and four Indians.
Foster made a careful survey of all the stores and water. His insistence on loading condensed milk rather than the usual tinned salted meat would prove crucial. And his inclusion of tobacco would help morale.
The two standard-issue lifeboats were 26ft with 8ft beams and 17ft masts.
Each boat had eight ash oars used to make some progress when the breeze failed. No.1 was leaking through a cracked plank.
On the third day time was lost, as the mast and tiller-head of the captain’s boat had to be repaired.
Foster had by then established watches and rationing. Water held in empty cigarette tins provided three tablespoons full per man per day. And rain was caught in improvised tin chutes held under the crew’s chins.
Foster measured the water in the two beakers as he doled out the meagre allowance. Having been through one similar ordeal, the captain knew survival depended upon rigid adherence to the strict rationing.
And he also knew that any outbreak of violence caused by craving for water would have been disastrous.
But the lack of water made the tough ship’s biscuits almost impossible to swallow and hunger pangs wracked everyone.
A big problem was keeping the two boats together, and after six days it was decided to separate so their chances of being seen might be doubled.
Although Foster did not know it, one rescue vessel was within 90 miles of the lifeboats when they pulled apart.
The days passed slowly. An Arab fireman weakened and died on the 19th day followed the next day by his Indian workmate. Both had been given extra rations but to no avail. They were given burial rites appropriate to their religions performed by the Burmese fireman.
Several rain showers replenished the water supplies in the captain’s boat, but the heavy weather also sheared away the mast block and the storm drove the flimsy vessel too far northwards, threatening to bypass Rodriguez.
Repeated storms soaked the cold, thirsty, starving men. But their spirits rose when they saw a bosun bird which never strayed too far from a coastline.
The captain promised a tin of water to the first man who saw land and on the afternoon of the 23rd the carpenter claimed the reward. A passing fisherman guided them through a reef to a jetty where they were greeted by joyous islanders. They were so weak they had to be helped out of the boat.
No.1 Boat had travelled 1,556 miles in almost 23 days with the loss of two of the 20 men on board. Meanwhile, 300 miles away, the first officer’s No.3 Boat was still battling with the sea and the 24 men on board were thinning out. Without their captain on board, some could not resist drinking seawater or dunking their teeth-breaking biscuits in the brine to soften them.
An Indian fireman was the first to die, followed by two of his mates. A few days later the assistant cook and a seaman succumbed, crazed by the intake of sea salt and dehydration.
The second engineer was thrown off the boat during a storm as he reached to catch rainwater in his tin, his heavy boots dragging him down. And an apprentice died of privation.
On the 25th day, just before Mauritius was sighted, the fourth engineer died. The cook was later to die in hospital .
The lifeboat pulled offshore in the early hours of June 29 and shortly before dawn hailed a fishing boat. Its crew thought they
were ghosts and fled. A second fishing vessel, however, guided them into harbour.
Boat No.3 had travelled 1,747 miles in just under 25 days with the loss of nine men – taking Trevassa’s total death toll to 11.
Both open-boat voyages were remarkable, not just for their longevity and feats of navigation, but also for the discipline shown by crews of different nationalities and backgrounds.
Despite all temptations, the two crews finished with a reserve of rations. And while the men battled intense thirst and starvation, there was not a single attempt to pilfer another man’s rations.
The system of doling out the water and food in front of all, so that each man could see that he was receiving his fair share,
had proved to be the best safeguard against jealousy and suspicion.
Captain Foster’s foresight, driven by personal experience, in ensuring the boats were provisioned in ferocious seas on a sinking ship, proved to be pivotal.
Foster himself praised the 62-year-old veteran seaman Scully, saying that “you would go far and not find a better sailor”.
News of their survival was cabled across the world to widespread astonishment.
When the vessel bringing them home was welcomed at Gravesend by sirens and bunting, one onlooker remarked: “There must be something up in London today.”
Captain Foster and First Officer Smith were even received by King George V at Buckingham Palace. Foster died in Barry, South Wales, in 1930, aged 40.
A contemporary newspaper report said: “We may think with pride that our British sailors can match in daring, resolution, and loyalty those who won for their flag the realm of the circling sea.”
