Daily Event for November 17


On or about Nov.17, 1874 the Cospatrick burned off Auckland, NZ. Cospatrick had been launched in 1856 and served as a passenger ship. Later the ship helped lay the submarine cable in the Persian Gulf. She finally ended up as an emigrant ship.

On Sept.11,1874 Cospatrick departed England for New Zealand, with 429 emigrants, the crew, and along for the trip was the Captains wife and young son. Sometime after midnight a fire broke out in the forecastle, at the time large amounts of flammable materials were stored there. The captain turned the ship behind the wind to minimize fanning the flames to the rest of the ship.

Firefighting efforts failed even though the ship had been designed with fire safety in mind. However the pump was located in the forward part of the ship and was inaccessible. The crew started a bucket brigade, but this was a slow and inefficient process. For some unknown reason in the middle of all this the Cospatrick managed to turn into the wind. This doomed the ship as the fire spread quickly across the deck.

Soon the fire was completely out of control, even burning some of the lifeboats. It was difficult to launch the other lifeboats because they were overloaded. It is said that one boat with about 40 people in it fell into the water after the line broke killing all aboard.

By now the fire had spread to the masts and they began to collapse. Soon after this the Cospatrick exploded and sank. Only two lifeboats were launched successfully, these contained about 80 people. The survivors were now in a dreadful position. The boats were not equipped with sails or adequate food or water. Furthermore, a storm on the 21st. separated the boats. One was never seen again. It is reported that some of the people in the remaining boat were driven to cannibalism to survive. On the 25th. only 8 out of the 41 people on the boat were still alive.

The ship British Scepter picked up the survivors on the 26th. But by this time only the second officer, the quartermaster and a seaman were still alive. Over 400 others had perished in the disaster.

© 2005 Michael W. Pocock
MaritimeQuest.com