by Jared » November 26, 2022, 1:05 am
Guest wrote: ↑November 25, 2022, 11:46 am
Great info Jared thanks, how deep is the water where the stern and bow are?
If you have dived on this wreck what's your best guess do you think
crew were still alive in the stern after the bow sank? What do you think
happened, series of events, that caused the stern to sink some 5 miles away?
Thank you in advance.
Water at the bow is in 200ft of water and the stern is in 210. The crew in the stern alive until the stern sank a few minutes after 5 AM. We know by the course of the stern that once the break up occurred, the stern pushed the bow out of the way and continued a rough drifting course to the north and west almost broadside to the waves.
What the actions of the crew entailed in the 3 hours between the breakup is unknown except of evidence of trying to stuff everything they could into the doorways. Lifeboats were mostly out of the question as the boats would be smashed against the side of the hull and I'm sure stability of the stern was in question as they had no ballast control and the rudder would be hard to turn manually, and the emergency station was exposed the the weather. We can only speculate on why the crew did not shut the engine down and abandon the ship earlier. We don't know how many people climbed onto the stern life raft and were washed off. No victims were discovered in the physical wreck itself, which means they abandoned the ship before it went down.
As is known now, the Morrell is the only wreck so far that has separated such a distance. The only comparison known is the 1860 wreck of the Lady Elgin which is spread out over 2 miles.
[quote=Guest post_id=251039 time=1669394819]
Great info Jared thanks, how deep is the water where the stern and bow are?
If you have dived on this wreck what's your best guess do you think
crew were still alive in the stern after the bow sank? What do you think
happened, series of events, that caused the stern to sink some 5 miles away?
Thank you in advance.
[/quote]
Water at the bow is in 200ft of water and the stern is in 210. The crew in the stern alive until the stern sank a few minutes after 5 AM. We know by the course of the stern that once the break up occurred, the stern pushed the bow out of the way and continued a rough drifting course to the north and west almost broadside to the waves.
What the actions of the crew entailed in the 3 hours between the breakup is unknown except of evidence of trying to stuff everything they could into the doorways. Lifeboats were mostly out of the question as the boats would be smashed against the side of the hull and I'm sure stability of the stern was in question as they had no ballast control and the rudder would be hard to turn manually, and the emergency station was exposed the the weather. We can only speculate on why the crew did not shut the engine down and abandon the ship earlier. We don't know how many people climbed onto the stern life raft and were washed off. No victims were discovered in the physical wreck itself, which means they abandoned the ship before it went down.
As is known now, the Morrell is the only wreck so far that has separated such a distance. The only comparison known is the 1860 wreck of the Lady Elgin which is spread out over 2 miles.