3-052-447 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Orient Line steamer Chimborazo in a gale, 1880. 'This magnificent vessel, one of the new "Orient Line," carrying passengers and mails from London to Adelaide and Melbourne,...met with a severe blow from a storm-wave in going out of the Channel on the 9th February. It caused some loss of life, and so much damage to the ship's fittings that she was obliged to put back and delay her voyage...The ship returned to Plymouth, and landed her passengers; she then came to the port of London, and was placed in dock for some needful repairs. These were speedily effected by the workmen of Messrs. Green's ship-building yard, aided by the great facilities which the Dock Company afforded; and...within six days of her return to Plymouth, the Chimborazo again left the Thames, carrying the mails... The passengers who had been left at Plymouth were there re-embarked; and the ship has now proceeded on her voyage to Australia, with the delay of but one week in consequence of the accident, for which neither her owners nor her commander are to be blamed. She was not at all overladen, and her crew, numbering 120 men, of whom thirty-eight were seamen and thirty-four engineers, was considered amply sufficient by the inspector of the Board of Trade'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.