Ares

The captain went to bed and handed over command to his first mate. At 04.35, he was woken up by the second mate, who told him that dense fog had formed. The captain immediately returned to the bridge and resumed command.

Shortly afterwards, fog signals were heard from two oncoming sailing vessels. To be on the safe side, Ares slowed down and turned to starboard. Soon after, the two sailing vessels passed. Almost immediately another foghorn was heard, this time from port side.

Ares responded with a short signal. Again, a short signal was heard from port, causing Ares to give two prolonged signals to indicate that she was remaining still. Then the bow of a large ship was seen coming right towards Ares’ port side.

The big steamer hit her port side, and water immediately began to gush into Ares. Most of the crew had gathered on deck and were told to immediately jump over to the bow of the other ship, which was still stuck in Ares. When the captain counted his men, he realised that the two engineers and Elida Rohlsson were missing.

The captain jumped back to his sinking ship, rushed to the engine room and shouted for the engineers to abandon ship. The engineers scrambled onto the deck with Elida, who had been asleep when the collision occurred. The three were forced to jump into the water, but were then rescued by a lifeboat from the other vessel.

The Dutch steamer Hilversum, loaded with planks, was the ship that collided with Ares. The subsequent investigation considered the incredibly dense fog to be the cause of the accident.