Brown, "Yarmouth Castle Inferno." Watson, Disasters at Sea.
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| S.S. Yarmouth Castle | ||||||
| Built for the Eastern Steamship Lines' intracoastal service, Evangeline originally ran between Boston and New York and the Canadian Maritimes with her sister ship Yarmouth. (While Evangeline was only renamed Yarmouth Castle in 1958, Yarmouth had a succession of names including Yarmouth Castle, Queen of Nassau, Yarmouth Castle again, and Yarmouth again in 1958.) During World War II, Evangeline served as a troop transport. She was laid up from 1948 to 1953, except briefly in 1950. Passing into Liberian and then Panamanian registry, in 1964 she was acquired by the Chadade Steamship Company, a subsidiary company owned by Canadian shipping magnate Jules Sokoloff, for service on the 186-mile run between Miami and the Bahamas. On November 12, 1965, Yarmouth Castle sailed from Miami. At 1230 on the 13th, a fire of uncertain origin was detected in cabin 610, then being used for storage. Captain Byron Voutsinas gave the order to abandon ship at 0125, but he did not order the radio operator to transmit a distress call. Voutsinas was in the first lifeboat, although after making contact with the Finnish freighter MV Finnpulp (Captain Lehto), which had come to Yarmouth Castle's aid as soon as a crewman saw the fire, he returned to his ship. Twelve miles astern, the passenger ship Bahama Star (Captain Carl Netherland-Brown) also came to the ship's assistance. Yarmouth Castle sank at 0603 in 25�55N, 78�06W, with the loss of 87 people, all but two of them passengers; Finnpulp took off 51 passengers and 41 crew, Bahama Star 240 passengers and 133 crew. Following the Yarmouth Castle disaster, Congress enacted legislation requiring foreign-flag ships sailing from U.S. ports to have improved safety measures. The United States also prevailed upon the UN's Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization (later the International Maritime Organization) to promulgate stricter regulations for shipping worldwide. Brown, "Yarmouth Castle Inferno." Watson, Disasters at Sea. |
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