Sailor's Nightmare

As a reward for 40 years of stainless service at sea, Captain Douglas R. V. Lee was given command of the $12 million Royal Mail liner Magdalena. A silent, broad-shouldered man of 59, Captain Lee planned to make two voyages in his spanking new 17,500-ton ship, then retire. After that, said his wife: "My business will be him, and his business me."

The Magdalena's maiden voyage began uneventfully enough out of London. After a smooth South Atlantic crossing, the liner coasted down to Santos and Buenos Aires, picking up a cargo of Brazilian oranges and Argentine beef, then headed northeast for Rio and home. At 4:45 of a calm, cloudy morning last week, disaster intercepted the Magdalena

First Officer Cyril Senior was at the conn, approaching Rio's broad, mountain-ringed harbor at about 15 knots when, without a hint of danger, came the sensation that strikes terror into every sailor's bones: a sharp, grinding noise forward. The 'Magdalena shuddered to a stop, hard aground on a reef so shoal that breakers creamed over it.

The whistle shrilled the abandon-ship alarm. Nightgowned women and screaming children rushed to the decks. The crew quickly got all passengers into the lifeboats, dropped the boats halfway over the side. There the passengers huddled for three hours, until rescue ships came alongside. Sunrise revealed that the Magdalena had been sailing a good five miles out of the steamer lane, a bare two miles off the rock-strewn shore.

Helped by a fresh wind and a strong ground swell, the Magdalena slowly worked herself off her perch. Next morning, tugs took her in tow. As the crippled ship wallowed into the harbor, Rio stopped work. From the seawalls, from the windows of downtown office skyscrapers, all along the city's 20 miles of beaches, cariocas gaped. None anticipated the climax.

Just as the Magdalena neared famed Sugar Loaf, her deck plates began to buckle. Captain Lee dropped anchor, for the second time gave the abandon-ship order. Then, with a rending sound like the falling of a giant tree, the ship broke in two, her nose rising crazily in the air.

At week's end the bow had sunk, but the stern two-thirds of the ship rested on a beach. Officials had ordered a full inquiry; agents of Lloyd's of London, who had insured the ship for $8,000,000, rushed to Rio to determine how the stern and the cargo could be salvaged.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.