Why Ships Capsize: Schooner Days DCCCLXVI (866)

by C. H. J. Snider

YORK Pioneer and Historical Society has asked about the Victoria ferry steamer tragedy at London-in-the-Bush nearly seventy years ago, and sailors of 1948 are still asking how a smart seaworthy ballasted yacht could capsize in Toronto Bay, as happened only last month. Here is an attempt to answer both parties.

First, the Silhouette, seagoing tumlaren, decked over, ballasted well enough to enable her to carry racing sail in a gale of wind.

JUST A LUCKY EXPERIENCE

Unknown to twelve men aboard she had sprung a leak. There was a lot of water in her. Under a puff she heeled over. The unsuspected water in her ran to the lower side and made her heel more. She had not capsized, but she was so much on her side that one corner of her cockpit was below the level of the outside water. So more water rushed into her. A gallon of water weighs ten pounds. It does not take long for 200 gallons to run in. That would add a ton to her burden. The weight of twelve husky men made a ton more. She had thus lost two tons of buoyancy. The lead ballast under her keel was not enough to lever her back to an upright position against the two ton pressure. It only helped to pull her down. When she went under completely she straightened up, because she was relieved of the weight of the twelve men, now all waterborne, and the water inside of her was no heavier than the water outside. The initial buoyancy of the wood in her hull and spars, raised her upright in the water, though the weight of her ballast and other metal held her to the bottom of the bay.

This may seem obvious, but it explains why any vessel capsizes. She stays upright, whether sunk or floating, while whatever buoyancy she has is above her centre of gravity. When the centre of buoyancy is moved so that it is no longer above the centre of gravity she inclines or goes upside down. This is putting it clumsily, in order to avoid the confusion of "metacentric height," "righting moments," and other technicalities. The awesome "metacentre" is only the point or pivot around which weight and buoyancy play tag. It is the pivot around which the whole body revolves.

THIS WAS WORSE

Too much has been said about the sinking of the Silhouette already and Schooner Days apologizes for re-opening the subject. The conduct of her crew was admirable throughout, and the salvage work was seamanlike, swift, and successful. No lives were lost, and a dunking was the worst that happened.

But the Victoria took nearly 200 lives, and was a deplorable price of folly.

The Victoria disaster occurred in the River Thames about four miles below London, Ontario, May 24, 1881. Lives lost were 197, most of them by drowning, some crushed when an upper deck collapsed on them, and others when the boiler, mounted between decks, broke loose as the vessel lurched and rolled over one side.

The Victoria was one of three vessels operated in a ferry service from London to Springbank picnic park. On the day of the disaster about 2,000 people had been transported to the park and in the rush to get home about 555 persons, many of them women and children, jammed aboard this one ship with capacity for 400, although how even that many could be carried in safety in an 80-foot vessel of shallow draft and small tonnage seems amazing.

Shortly after leaving the pumping station dock at Springbank the Victoria began to rock. One story was that Ned Hanlon was rowing on the river, and that someone shouted that he was passing and many rushed to one side to see him. Another version was that two unnamed oarsmen passed and someone shouted that a race was in progress. Or a little bilge water may have swished about in the hold.

At any rate, it appears that a rush to one side occurred and the overloaded upper deck collapsed. With that the boiler broke loose and rolling to one side, the ship capsized. Hundreds were thrown into the water and many trapped under the ship and boiler. It was London's greatest disaster. It brought grief to so many homes.

A monument stands now on the North Bank of the Thames opposite the spot where the disaster occurred. To see the river today one cannot but wonder how any ship the breadth of the Victoria, 23 feet, could find room to turn over. In fact, there seems reason to doubt that it could have more than tipped a little beyond 45 degrees.

The Victoria was a sternwheel two-decker, with a hurricane roof, on which passengers clambered. She measured over all, from bow to stern 80 feet, beam 23 feet, depth of hold, 3 feet 10 inches. "The boiler which was made by Messrs. H. Winnett and Sons of this, city," said the Toronto Globe at the time, "is 60 horsepower, 14 feet in length, 3 1/2 in diameter and had ninety tubes. There was a steam pump, handle pump, and inspirator to keep the boiler supplied with water. The engine was furnished by Mr. J. White of Forest City Machine Works, King street. It was a single cylinder, 10 1/2 inches in diameter, 29 inches stroke and fitted to a wheel crank. The shaft was 17 feet in length, upon which were two paddle wheels ten by four feet each. The steering apparatus was regarded as an improvement on the old system, the pilot house being open. The seats encircled both decks, affording accommodation for about four hundred. The height between decks was between seven and eight feet. The steamer was also supplied with life-preservers, and all the appointments required by law. Mr. Meneilly, acting chairman of the steamboat Board of Inspectors for Ontario made a thorough inspection of the steamer last season, and pronounced her in every respect a model craft, and her machinery to be A1. She was registered at Port Stanley: Gross tonnage 58 tons; net tons, 38 tons. The steamer cost about $5,000."

OVERLOADED

The fault was not with the vessel, but with the way she was used. To pack 555 human beings, thirty or forty tons of moving flesh, on platforms (representing the decks) so high above a keel only three feet in the water, was a hazard madness that would not have been attempted even in the evacuation of Dunkirk. If there was any water in the shallow hull its rippling from side to side would set up a swaying motion impossible to correct. In this case, the centre of gravity, dangerously high, through improper loading, jumped out of the control of the metacentre as the ship "rocked" with the motion of its human freight. Then the weight of the displaced boiler and displaced cargo broke the vessel apart.

The remedy against capsizing is to keep weight low and buoyancy high, water out and bilges dry.

THIS PLEASURE BOAT DISASTER 197 DIED

A rare old "stereopticon view" of the innocent looking London ferry VICTORIA, from the collection of Dr. Fred Landon, University of Western Ontario. The illustration of the accident is from the contemporary Canadian Illustrated News, whose artists went full out on the disaster in some cases with line engravings of great merit.