Shipwreck
On 31 January 2008 at 19:30 she was "broadsided" by a wave, causing the cargo to shift. At 19:45 the captain sent a Mayday call. The ship was listing at 60 degrees. At 20:00 the rescue crew at RAF Valley on Anglesey was put on standby, being scrambled at 20:20. Liverpool Coastguard co-ordinated assistance. Helicopters from the Irish Coast Guard, Royal Navy and Royal Air Force attended, along with lifeboats from Lytham and Fleetwood. The Steersman assisted with communications and the support vessels Clwyd Supporter and Highland Sprite were reported to be on their way to assist. Before he was rescued, one of the passengers made an emotional, and what he thought at the time final, mobile phone call home to his wife. Starting at 21:00, eight people were airlifted from the ship, which later ran aground on Cleveleys's North Beach opposite Anchorsholme Lane at around 22:50 (grid ref SD 309 424 53°52′23″N 3°03′09″W / 53.873182°N 3.052444°W / 53.873182; -3.052444), very close to the remains of the Abana. The passengers and crew lifted off the ship arrived at Blackpool airport at 22:00, and two of them were taken to hospital suffering from mild hypothermia, but were not admitted. The passenger who had called his wife was able to call her at 22:30 to say that he was safe. Six crew members were taken off the vessel after it had run aground.
The decision to evacuate the remaining nine crew members was made in the early hours of 1 February. The remaining crew were airlifted off the ship at 04:00 on 1 February. The rescued crew and passengers were accommodated at a hotel in Lancaster or provided with a taxi home.
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Famous quotes containing the word shipwreck:
“Words convey the mental treasures of one period to the generations that follow; and laden with this, their precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time in which empires have suffered shipwreck and the languages of common life have sunk into oblivion.”
—Anonymous. Quoted in Richard Chevenix Trench, On the Study of Words, lecture 1 (1858)
“For the bright side of the painting I had a limited sympathy. My visions were of shipwreck and famine; of death or captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean unapproachable and unknown.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)
“Accordingly, death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked.”
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