Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Glasgow Steamer Hestia lost off Grand Manan - October 1909

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Hestia porthole. Art MacKay


Bay of Fundy, NB Steamer HESTIA Lost, Oct 1909 Posted April 21st, 2010 by Stu Beitler
From: Gendisasters

GLASGOW STEAMER LOST.

THIRTY-FOUR MEN DROWNED IN THE BAY OF FUNDY.

SUFFERINGS OF SIX SURVIVORS.

The Glasgow steamer Hestia was wrecked on Grand Manan Island, in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick, in a storm on Monday, and thirty-four of those on board were drowned, only six being saved. There were five passengers on board, all of whom appear to have been drowned.
The vessel, says a Reuter telegram from East Port, Maine, ran on to a shoal at Old Proprietor Ledge, her bows were impaled on a rock, and her after part, swinging free, was tossed high by the heavy seas. The captain had the boats lowered at the first shock, and as the vessel heeled over, and great waves swept her deck, the work was exceedingly difficult. In one of the boats four Scottish boys who were passengers were placed, with twelve of the crew. The boat, however, capsized, and all were drowned except two of the men. Still another boat was lowered, in which the captain took his place, with all the rest of the crew except six, who were left on board. When the gale abated in the afternoon the six men left on board were rescued by lifeboats. These, says a Lloyd's telegram, are the third officer (STEWART), the second engineer (MORGAN), and four seamen, KEEN (?Brian), McKENZIE, SMYTH, and McVICAR. The Hestia is a total wreck.

Three of the boats drifted ashore on Wednesday; two were empty, and the third contained four dead bodies.

38 Hours In The Rigging.
The third mate gives the following particulars:
The discovery of the ship's plight from the shore was delayed by thick weather. The survivors were lashed to the rigging for thirty-eight hours without either food or water, and when they were taken off by the lifeboat their condition was pitiable. Their sufferings were so terrible that it is feared that one of their number will not recover. After they had been in the rigging for twenty-four hours there were indications that caused them to fear that the mast would fall, and they therefore changed their position, working their way slowly and cautiously to the bridge, which was still out of water. It was, however, so exposed to the seas breaking over the vessel that they were obliged to return to the rigging.

Crew Of Clyde Men.
It is supposed that the vessel was misled by a wrong light, with the result that she was carried miles out of her course. She left Glasgow for St. John's, New Brunswick, on October 10th, with a crew of thirty-five, five passengers and a general cargo.

All the crew were shipped at Glasgow, and were chiefly Clyde men. The four Glasgow boys reported drowned were on their way to Canada in charge of horses with which to start farming.

The list of crew and passengers is as follows:
Captain H. M. NEWMAN.
First Officer T. McNAIR.
Second Officer JOHN McPHUN.
Third Officer S. STEWART.
Carpenter WILLIAM CALDWELL.
Boatswain ALEX DUNIGAN.
A.B.'s JAMES SMYTH, JOE SMYTH, B. BRIAN, A. MURRAY, C. McVICAR, D. GIBSON, JOHN McKENZIE, and WILLIAM CANDLESS.
Ordinary Seaman D. SINCLAIR.
Chief Engineer P. F. MUNN.
Second Engineer A. MORGAN.
Third Engineer H. SCOTT.
Fourth Engineer W. S. BEST.
Donkeyman HUGH SPIERS.
Storekeeper W. WARNOCK.
Firemen CHARLES DOEHERTY, P. HANNAH, JAMES RODGER, A. DUBRAN, A. MARTIN, and JOHN DONOCHIE.
Trimmers DANIEL CLARK, JOHN McFARLANE, DAVID McLEON, and JOHN O'NEIL.
Chief Steward A. McLEAN.
Second Steward A. GRAHAM.
Cook R. LAVERY.
Assistant Steward W. HART.
Passengers, JAMES WELSH, JAMES GALLOWAY and R. GALLOWAY (brothers), T. REID and D. COWAN.

The Hestia was a steel screw steamer of 2,434 tons, built in 1890. She belonged to the Donaldson Line of Glasgow.

Hackney Express Middlesex London 1909-10-30

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

OPINION: From Off the Coast of Massachusetts: A Cautionary Tale About Natural Gas Infrastructure


CLF Scoop: From Off the Coast of Massachusetts: A Cautionary Tale About Natural Gas Infrastructure

Posted: 30 Jan 2013 07:55 AM PST
The front page of the Boston Globe last week presented a powerful, timely and cautionary tale about  two liquefied natural gas terminals  that sit off the coast of Gloucester and Salem. Those terminals are the tangible reminder of a massive push undertaken by energy industry insiders to build such terminals.  The intensity of that push, which began to build around 2002, becoming most intense during the 2004  to 2007 period and then petering out in the years since, contrasts sharply with the reality described in the Globe article: that those two offshore terminals have sat idle for the last two years.
That push to build LNG import facilities, which was such a mania in energy industry circles circa 2005, yielded some crazy ideas, like the proposal to hollow out a Boston Harbor Island and the infamous Weavers Cove project in Fall River. The offshore terminals, while the least bad of those proposals, reflected short sighted thinking detached from careful regional planning.  Both in terms of the need for these facilities and design decisions like regulators not forcing the projects to share one pipeline to shore instead of (as they did) twice disturbing the marine environment to build two duplicative pieces of infrastructure.
Today, the hue and cry is no longer about LNG, instead we are bombarded with impassioned demands for more natural gas pipelines as well as more measured discussions of the need for "smart expansions". Will we have the collective intelligence to be smarter and more careful this time? Will the permitting process force consideration, as the law requires, of alternatives that make better use of existing infrastructure and pose less risk to the environment and the wallets of customers? Fixing natural gas leaks and becoming much more efficient in our use of gas is a key "supply strategy" that needs to be on the table and fully examined before committing to new pipelines.
And as it so often is, the overarching issue here is protecting future generations by addressing the climate issue. Science and prudent energy analysis, makes it clear that we need to put ourselves on a trajectory to end the burning of fossil fuels, including natural gas by the middle of this century. Given this reality every proposal to build massive and long-lived facilities to import more of those fuels must be viewed with great skepticism.