Sinking
Soon after departing the Desbrosses Street Pier on its way to Albany in the morning fog of 1 June 1926, Washington Irving was struck, a little after 9:00am, by one of two oil barges being pushed by the tug boat Thomas E. Moran. The collision damaged Washington Irving's starboard side below the water line just aft of amidships, allowing water to rush into the engine rooms. The collision resulted in a hole measuring 21 feet (6.4 m) long and 3 feet (0.91 m) wide. The Captain, David H. Deming, ordered all passengers to put on life preservers and whistled the "Ship's afire" signal of two long and three short blasts repeatedly. A chaos of shouts prevailed as the passenger's tried to don life vests and locate their children in the fog. An inability to see any land increased the alarm of the passenger's despite the Captain's shouts that all would be safe and he ordered the jazz band to resume playing their music and maintain their post until rescue.
Assisted by tug boats, Washington Irving reached shore at the then under construction Pier 12, Jersey City and sank five minutes later. Three passengers died as a result of the accident. Wylma Wood Hoag, (wife of Lynne Arthur Hoag and mother to Arthur Allen Hoag), their three-year-old daughter Mary, and B. Woods, a steward, who was trapped in a cabin far below deck. The accident was determined to be unavoidable due to "the unusual and unexpected strength of the tidal current, possibly below the surface" after an inquiry by the United States Steamship Inspection Board closed on 9 June 1926.
Washington Irving was valued at $1,000,000 but insured for much less. The barge suffered only $8,000 of damages. At the time of the sinking, Alexander McKinney was the head porter. He had joined the Day Line in 1905 and continued in their service till at least 1964.
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Famous quotes containing the word sinking:
“We ask for no statistics of the killed,
For nothing political impinges on
This single casualty, or all those gone,
Missing or healing, sinking or dispersed,
Hundreds of thousands counted, millions lost.”
—Karl Shapiro (b. 1913)
“I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire,”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“We of the sinking middle class ... may sink without further struggles into the working class where we belong, and probably when we get there it will not be so dreadful as we feared, for, after all, we have nothing to lose but our aitches.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)