Empress of Ireland:
Her History and
Exploring the Wreck
In the early 1900s, the C.P.R. “
Canadian Pacific Railway Company “ was one of the foremost concerns operating
steamships across the globe. The company’s global system of transportations
ranked as the largest in the world. Steamers sailed across the North Atlantic
from Britain to Eastern Canada and from there, rails stretched west all the way
to the Pacific port of Vancouver. Here ships continued the relay, crossing the
Pacific Ocean to reach the Orient. Canadian Pacific enjoyed immense success and
popularity among the traveling public, with their famous fleet of Empress-liners
as a trademark.
The most famous of these liners was the
Empress of Ireland. She and her sister ship, Empress of Britain, were
both commissioned in 1906 for Canadian Pacific’s Liverpool-Quebec route. Built
by the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company of Glasgow, the two sisters
were more or less identical in appearance, although the Empress of Ireland
beat her older sister in size by just a glance – she was two tons larger. The
two vessels had originally been planned as the Empress of Austria and
Empress of Germany, but for some reason the names were changed at an early
stage. The pair had been designed with a mail contract in mind, so it was
crucial that they were able to maintain their schedule even in rough weather.
They had to be able to average at least 17 knots during each crossing, and were
therefore constructed with a higher freeboard than other ships at the time.
The Empress of Ireland was launched
by Mrs. Alexander Gracie on January 27th, 1906. Five months later,
on June 29th, the day had come for the new Empress to set out
on her very first voyage across the North Atlantic. She soon proved to be a
reliable ship, meeting every expectation of her owners. With her 14,191 tons and
17-knot service speed, the Empress of Ireland was one of the largest and
fastest ships operating on the Canadian run. The Empress of Ireland was
truly a fine liner, with airy public areas and even a five-piece string
orchestra on board to serenade the first class passengers during dinner time.
The Empress of Ireland’s service
within the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. went on with neither mishaps nor
miracles. Her older sister Empress of Britain broke the speed record for
the run between Father Point and Liverpool with a crossing of 5 days, 8 hours
and 18 minutes in 1907, but the Empress of Ireland was never to possess
any such honors. It seemed that Canadian Pacific were perfectly content with
letting the Empress of Britain bathe in the glory.
One interruption in the Empress of Ireland’s otherwise steady service
came in July of 1913, when she participated in the Mersey Royal Review of
merchant and naval vessels by King George V and Queen Mary. After this brief
break, it was back to her somewhat anonymous service again.
Tragically, as history would have it, the
memory of the Empress of Ireland was to be associated with disaster, just
as with the Titanic, Lusitania and Andrea Doria – to just
mention a few. On May 29th 1914, the Empress of Ireland left
Quebec at half past four in the afternoon with a total of 1,477 people on board.
Traveling down the St. Lawrence River, the Empress – under the command of
Captain Henry Kendall – encountered heavy fog when she was nearing the mouth of
the river that same evening. Later that night, when it had already become the 30th
of May, the Empress’ lookout reported spotting an incoming ship on the
ship’s starboard side. The rules to be applied when two ships meet in bad
visibility were not very complicated: When meeting head on, each ship was to
turn to starboard and pass the meeting vessel ‘port-to-port’. But if the two
ships were on a ‘starboard-to-starboard’ course, this was to be maintained due
to the risk of collision.
When the two ships were approaching in the
night, the fog suddenly became much denser. Captain Kendall ordered the
Empress of Ireland stopped and her engines put astern to give the meeting
ship more maneuvering space. He then gave three blasts with the ship’s whistle
to announce his action. Tragically, the crew on board the oncoming ship – which
was the Norwegian collier Storstad – had taken actions to pass
‘port-to-port’. Making their starboard turn, the crew of the Storstad put
their ship directly across the path of the Empress of Ireland. Emerging
from the thick fog, the Storstad’s bow crashed into the starboard side of
the Empress.
Disaster was now a cruel fact. The
Empress of Ireland had been holed above and below the waterline just where
the engine room was situated. It took only a short moment before the engine room
was flooded, making it impossible for the crew to operate the ship’s watertight
doors. It also rendered the Empress powerless to move, thus making any
plans of beaching the ship impossible. In addition, the Empress’
electrical power was rapidly fading, extinguishing all of the ship’s
illumination, and only one S.O.S.-call could be sent before it went out
completely.
The whole course of events that followed
after the collision occurred during the brief time of only 14 minutes. The
Empress of Ireland had taken on a serious list to starboard immediately
after the impact, and it grew worse by the minute. Open portholes in the ship’s
hull made matters even worse – as soon as they went under, more water was
rushing in at a horrifying pace. For many of the passengers who were asleep in
their cabins, there was barely time to understand what was happening before it
was all over. A small number of people, mostly from the first class cabins
situated on the upper decks, managed to get out on the boat deck. But once
there, things did not look much brighter. Some ten or eleven minutes after the
collision, the Empress of Ireland violently lurched over on her starboard
side, throwing hundreds of people – including Captain Kendall – into the deadly
freezing waters of the St. Lawrence River. Hundreds of people were clinging to
the side of the ship, which was now lying completely on its side in the water.
For a short moment, it seemed as if the ship had gone aground and would stay in
this position. But suddenly, the Empress of Ireland’s stern rose slightly
out of the water, and then the ship slipped beneath the cold waves. Hundreds of
people were left in the icy waters, and only four lifeboats had managed to
escape the sinking vessel.
One of the lucky souls that were pulled into
one of these lifeboats was Captain Kendall. Realizing his responsibility, he
immediately took command of the craft and started organizing the rescue
operations. Pulling survivors from the water, the lifeboats offloaded them on
the ship that had crashed into the Empress. The fog was still very dense,
and Captain Kendall did not yet know the name or nationality of the ship that
had sunk his command. After several rescue runs with the lifeboats, no more
survivors could be found and Captain Kendall gave up the search. He then
returned to the Storstad, which was badly damaged but still afloat.
The following month a Court of Enquiry was
held to settle the question of blame in the disaster. Heading it was Lord
Mersey, who had also been in charge of the investigations surrounding the
Titanic’s sinking two years earlier. Calling 61 witnesses, the Court put the
main blame on the Storstad, because it had taken a dangerous course to
pass ‘port-to-port’ of the Empress. The Norwegians disagreed and
maintained that Captain Kendall was to blame – they meant that by going astern,
he had put his ship in the way of the Storstad. Nevertheless, the
Norwegian company of A. F. Klaveness was sentenced to pay Canadian Pacific’s
damage claims. Unable to meet the liabilities, the Storstad’s owners were
forced to sell her to afford the claims.
Today, the Empress of Ireland remains at the location where she once went
down in the St. Lawrence River, five miles east of Father Point. A wreck-buoy
still marks the spot. There have been numerous visits to the sunken liner, which
lies at a depth of about 90 feet to her port railing and 130 feet to her
starboard railing. She lies on her starboard side with a gaping hole on the port
side of the hull. This hole was blasted by Canadian Pacific shortly after the
sinking, in order to retrieve a precious $150,000-cargo of silver bullion and
the mail going from Canada to England. The hole now serves as divers’ entrance
into what was once the ship’s first class dining room.
The most terrifying part of the Empress
of Ireland’s wreck is the place that is commonly known as ‘The boneyard’.
This is in fact the stewards’ dormitory, and it contains the bones of the sixty
stewards who were sleeping there at the night of the disaster. Lying in a
ghastly rubble, these bones are a horrifying reminder of that hellish night of
May 30th, 1914.
Divers can expect frigid water. On our last
trip to dive her in September of 2004, we experienced water temperatures of 36
degrees F, just above freezing. Normally we limit bottom times to between 20 to
30 minutes, and decompression stops can be chilly. Obviously this is a dive for
dry suit and dry gloves, and advanced certifications
Her structure remains almost intact
preserved by the near freezing water. Despite a number of salvage attempts the
ship still remains full of interesting artifacts and places to explore. The
strong currents frigid water, depth and visibility make for challenging diving
to be undertaken only by advanced trained wreck divers. Named the "Forgotten
Tragedy" this wreck provides the only accessible opportunity to explore a
historic tragedy of such a scale. Her tragic demise and the tremendous loss of
life was lost in the history books to the outbreak of World War One.
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email: denhaan@msn.com