SS Burutu (1902)

Registration Number: 115280

The Burutu (I) was put into service a 1902 passenger ship in the British shipping company, Elder Dempster & Company. The steamer sank on 3 October 1918 after a ship collision in the Irish Sea, with 148 passengers and crew members were killed.

The ship

The 3,863 -ton steamship Burutu was built in 1902 in Glasgow's Linthouse at the shipyard Alexander Stephen and Sons. The ship was launched on February 11, 1902, the hull number 394 from the stack and was completed in May of the same year. The fuselage was 109.7 meters long, 13.5 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 4.36 meters.

The triple expansion steam engine made ​​525 nominal horsepower and accelerated the ship to a maximum speed of 14 knots. The Burutu had a single propeller, one funnel, two masts.

The ship was for Founded in 1852, shipping Elder Dempster & Company Limited ( often abbreviated Elder Dempster Lines ) built, to the passenger and cargo traffic to the United States and Canada, but also to more distant destinations such as Africa, the Caribbean, the Canary Islands and India had specialized. Office of the shipping company was London but the home port of Liverpool was Burutu. The Burutu was used for the West Africa service and ran ports in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. It transported passengers, freight and mail. The ship was named after the village in the Nigerian Delta State.

Downfall

On Thursday, October 3, 1918 the Burutu approached the island of Anglesey in the Irish Sea. They came with 114 passengers and 98 crew members, and mail and cargo under the command of Captain Frederick Austin Blythe from Freetown (Sierra Leone) and was on the way to Liverpool.

The course of the incoming Burutu crossed with that of the outgoing City of Calcutta ( 7653 t), a cargo steamer of the British Ellerman 's City Line, which was located on the way from Manchester to Montreal. On board the City of Calcutta, there were 156 crew members. The two ships sailed in different convoys and were darkened accordance with the provisions of the British Admiralty, due to the U-boat threat and thus difficult to detect.

It was dark, rainy and stormy. At 23.00 clock it was 25 nautical miles south-west of Bardsey Iceland at the tip of the Lleyn Peninsula to collision. The Steven the City of Calcutta slammed into the port side of the passenger steamer, the full quickly ran and fell a few minutes after the collision. 148 passengers and crew members, including Captain Blythe, died in the accident died. In the following inquest of doom negligence was excluded. According to the judgment of Judge Hill the darkness and compliance to the orders of the Admiralty, were the cause of the crash.