Last Cruise of the Prinsendam By Joseph P. Blank (Reader`s Digest

Last Cruise of the Prinsendam
By Joseph P. Blank
(Reader’s Digest, November 1983, p 237 -264)
The luxury liner was three days out of port when the fire–the seaman's worst
nightmare–broke out. Five hundred and twenty-four lives were in peril, and only a
miracle could save them. Here is the story of the greatest air-sea rescue in maritime
history.
"No matter how many cruising adventures you have thrilled to in the past, this is the one
you're likely to remember the longest." So promised the Holland American Cruises
brochure for the voyage of the M.S. Prinsendam from Vancouver in Canada to the Far
East. For 319 passengers who boarded the graceful blue-and-white ship on September
30,1980, the statement turned out to be horrifying true.
The Prinsendam, 427 feet long, had been built in 1973 at a cost of $20 million and was
designed solely to render luxurious service. The crew numbered 205: officers and
technicians mostly Dutch, the rest of the staff mostly Indonesians. In their hands, the
ship becomes a self-contained world equipped to sustain its passengers' lives on the
alien ocean in utter ease and pleasure–and to guard against every hazard, of which the
most dangerous at sea are collision and fire.
In all, six decks were devoted to passenger comfort, the centerpiece being the
Promenade Deck, extending from one end of the ship to the other in an unbroken chain
of handsomely decorated public rooms. Toward the bow, directly beneath the bridge
was the intimate Prinsen Club, offering a superb view from its windows of the ship's
progress, and boasting a small dance floor, a bar and a lounge area.
A passageway led to the main lounge, with its cluster after cluster of chairs, cocktail
tables, sofas, exotic plantings and flowers, large dance floor, bandstand, and another
bar. One then passed around an obstruction, formed by the funnel, into the Lido
restaurant, a casual dining area that looked out over the open rear deck to the large
swimming pool. The entire Promenade Deck from bow to stern was encircled by open
deck, where passengers could stroll, jog, engage in sports or simply lounge.
One deck below the Lido restaurant, and just forward of the funnel area, was the main
dining room capable of seating 200 people. Passengers could dine in either room, but
whichever the choice, the food was superb, and presented in seemingly endless
quantities from early morning until the traditional midnight buffet.
But this was only one of the ship's two worlds. Past the swinging doors, through which
Indonesian waiters hurried with laden trays, was another rarely seen by the coddled
passengers.–the world where the crew both lived and worked. Here the guiding
principle was not luxury but utility. The kitchen gleamed with efficiency, its refrigerators
and freezers holding the tons of staples and delicacies needed to feed crew and
passengers. Beyond the kitchen area, the atmosphere changed again, at first subtly and
then more radically, as one descended from deck to deck. No fine wood paneling or
prints of famous art decorated the walls here. Though freshly painted and scrupulously
neat, the walls were plain steel, the decks not teak or carpeted, but steel again, often
ribbed to prevent slipping. No effort was made here to disguise the thick fire proof doors
and water tight bulkheads.
During a descent into the ship's core, the noise level increased, a thrumming vibration at
first, and then a deafening throb of power emanating from the engine room. The smell of
oil became pervasive, despite the strong ventilation systems. At last, in the engine room
was the great beating heart: the huge, oil fed engines that sped the ship through the
waves at 19 knots.
As well as any liner afloat the Prinsendam was constructed to cope with danger. The
Lloyd's Registry of Shipping gave the vessel its highest safety-construction rating:
+100A1. The design incorporated both vertical and horizontal fire boundaries, meant to
provide protection for passenger spaces and, in the worst case, allow time for
abandoning ship. The latest and best technology–foam applicators, full-flooding carbon
dioxide, remote controlled ventilation and fuel shut-down systems–supplanted the old
method of shipboard sprinkler system, which in general use had proved less reliable.
The most recent U.S. Coast Guard inspection of the Prinsendam has occurred in May
1980., five months earlier. It validated that the vessel was in full compliance with U.S.
fire-safety standards, and that those systems were adequately maintained.
Despite such precautions, it was here in the engine room that a series of events began
that were to change forever the lives of all aboard.
The Prinsendam sailed as scheduled, making its way up the island seaway of British
Columbia, and two days later putting into Ketchikan, Alaska. Next day the ship idled off
the awesome, blue-white walls of Glacier Bay, and then veered away from the coast
into the Gulf of Alaska. By midnight it was more than 100 miles from land in an
everroughening sea.
At 12:40 a.m., on October 4, the midnight watch took over the Prinsendam's engine
room. Assistant Engineer Robert Kalf routinely replaced a filter in the low pressure fuel
system. As he walked away, he heard a "bang" behind him. A four-foot jet of oil was
spurting into the air, splashing onto a hot pipe. Originally the pipe had been encased in
insulating blankets of fiberglass, but sometime in the past, probably during an overhaul,
the insulation had been removed. For reasons no one would ever know, the protective
covering had never been replaced. The oil, hitting the bare pipe, which had been heated
to a hellish 800 degrees Fahrenheit, burst into flames.
"They Sang on the Titanic Too"
The reaction was swift. An Indonesian, Mohamad Ali, also had seen the gusher and
leaped up the iron staircase to the enclosed control room, shouting to 3rd Engineer
Jaap van Hardeveld, in a mixture of pidgen English and Dutch: "Jaap, pompa brandstop
leaking!"
Instantly van Hardeveld sounded the engineers' alarm and shut down the No. 2 engine
where the fire was concentrated. He assumed that there was a leak in the high pressure
system, something that had happened several times before; with the engine dead, the
fuel supply would stop in a few seconds. Meanwhile, Ali slithered down the stair case,
grabbed a fire extinguisher and climbed up alongside engine No. 2, aiming at the hot
pipe. He was joined by 2nd Engineer Johan Repko, who rolled out a fire hose and
began spraying the pipe. Seven minutes had passed.
Alerted by the engineers" alarm, Chief Engineer Albert Boot, at 44 a veteran of many
years at sea, had dashed to the control room as well. Quickly appraising the situation,
he ordered the 25 water tight doors throughout the ship closed, the ventilation halted
and fire valves in the air-conditioning system shut. Smoke and poisonous vapors were
billowing from the fire.
At the fire itself, Repko was replaced by van Hardeveld, who took up an extinguisher
beside Ali while Repko went to the control room. The oil continued to spurt out. Later it
would become almost certain that the leak had not occurred in the high pressure
system, but in the low-pressure fuel supply, which was not affected by stopping the
engine. The blaze continued. Overcome by heat and fumes, van Hardeveld, blacked out
briefly; then he rushed to A Deck, two decks below the Promenade, and cut off the fuel
supply for all tanks.
About 1 a.m., ten minutes into the crisis, Engineer Boot gave the first warning to Capt.
Cornelis Wabeke, 52. They had a fire and it was getting worse. Shortly afterward, Boot
heard explosions in the engine room. He at once went to the bridge to speak personally
with Wabeke and advise him to flood the engine room with carbon dioxide to suffocate
the fire. Wabeke was shocked to hear the situation was so serious. A tall, trim man of
authority, Wabeke faced one of the toughest decisions of his 15 years as a Captain.
Releasing the CO2 would make it impossible to enter the engine room for several days
to make repairs. But after conferring with Boot, he ordered the preparations made. A
general alarm went to the crew. Wabeke had another difficult duty. It would be
necessary to warn the passengers, but he did not want to upset them unduly. He
believed the CO2 would do the job, and furthermore, as was usual on such extended
cruises, many of his passengers were elderly people. Though most were vigorous, a
few were in wheelchairs and a number suffered ailments ranging from diabetes to heart
conditions.
William Powell, a real-estate broker, was just preparing for bed when the public-address
system in his stateroom came alive: "This is your captain speaking. There is a small fire
in the engine room. It is under control, and there is no cause for alarm. If you are
experiencing smoke, proceed to the main lounge and the Lido restaurant on the
Promenade Deck."
"Damn," said Powell, "there goes the trip."
On the ship's first day out of port, the normal boat drill had been held. All six lifeboats
were lowered to rehearse the procedure for abandoning ship. Some passengers saw
the drill as a lighthearted affair, arriving at their assigned positions with life jackets half
on or incorrectly fastened, the men making jokes about the possibility of sinking. Now,
though some of the passengers came through the halls with washcloths or
handkerchiefs over their noses to filter out the increasing smoke, and the crewmen in
heat-resistant silver jump suits were clear evidence of the emergency, many
passengers arrived in the lounge without life jackets, and others were clad only in
pajamas, nightgowns and robes. When a group of shipboard entertainers launched into
a melody from Oklahoma!, one man commented, "They were singing on the Titanic too,
before it went down."
All in all, it did not seem a serious matter. With the general alarm, two fire brigades
began rolling out hoses. But they produced only a useless dribble. The three fire pumps
had lost electrical power. There was an emergency pump, however, housed in the
propeller-shaft tunnel. This was now sealed off behind a watertight door, but the pump
could be turned on by remote control. The pump functioned both as a bilge pump and
as a fire pump, depending on the position of a set of valves. At 1:30 a.m. Engineer
Repko tried to start the pump, to no avail. One more thing, had gone wrong.
A few minutes later, the engine room was cleared of all personnel and sealed off, and
the CO2 was injected. During the next 20 minutes Captain Wabeke and Chief Engineer
Boot patrolled the ship, looking for "hot spots." Of particular interest was the funnel,
running up between the Main Deck lounge and the Lido restaurant, one deck above. For
nearly an hour the funnel had been venting the heat of the fire below and spewing into
the night sky. One report had described it as "red hot." Wabeke and Boot now found it
Luke warm, evidence to them that he fire was going out. Nevertheless, the captain
ordered an XXX radio message sent to the Kodiak Coast Guard Station–a request for
assistance but without the urgency of an SOS.
Then he turned again to his passengers, most of whom had, because of smoke, left the
Lido restaurant and gone into the Lido terrace and other outside areas. It was a
decidedly chilly night, and few were properly dressed. Wabeke believed it was safe to
open the fire doors in the public rooms and kitchens to air out the smoke, and bring the
passengers down for warmth and refreshments. So the doors were opened, and
moments later the main dining room was afire. It might have happened anyway; or the
fire might have needed the additional oxygen fed in by the open doors. No one will ever
know. What was certain was that now the fire had spread to the superstructure of the
ship and the situation was beyond control. At 2:55 a.m. an SOS went out, and the crew
prepared to abandon ship.
Into the Boats
So far that night luck had not smiled on the Prinsendam. But now things began to
change. The ship could no longer shelter her passengers in regal comfort, but she could
save their lives.
The Prinsendam was almost due south of Valdez, the terminus of the trans-Alaskan
pipeline, and that morning the supertanker Williamsburgh had set out with 1.5 million
barrels of crude oil, bound for Corpus Christi, Texas. Although she required only a crew
of 31, the 1099-foot behemoth had enough deck space to house several hundred
people. When the radio operator picked up the Prinsendam's distress call, the tanker
was only 90 miles away. Master Arthur Fertig changed course at once and made for the
stricken ship.
The U.S. Coast Guard headquarters in San Francisco also caught the distress signal
and alerted its Rescue Coordination Center in Juneau Alaska. By 2:29 a.m. the 378-foot
cutter Boutwell, in port in Juneau, had rounded up its crew and set out. The nearest fully
equipped Coast Guard air station to the Prinsendam was at Kodiak Island, some 429
miles west. The station there launched a four-engine HC-130 search plane to pinpoint
the Prinsendam's position and to act as on scene commander for any rescue operation.
Two big HH-3 helicopters also took off, and the Sitka air station launched two more.
Close to 4 a.m. Lt. Cmdr Joel Thomas arrived at the site. Easing his helicopter,
searchlight beaming over the length of the ship, he saw nothing alarming. When
Captain Wabeke radioed that there were no injured persons requiring evacuation,
Thomas banked his aircraft away and headed toward the Williamsburgh, now 50 miles
off, planning on picking up some fire fighting equipment. He was 3 miles from the tanker
when the abrupt command came to reverse course. Wabeke had given the order to
abandon ship. It was 4:54 a.m.
Of the Prinsendam's six lifeboats, two had motors and could accommodate 46 people;
the four others, holding 99 people each, were fitted with T-shaped levers that could be
pushed and pulled to power a propeller. In addition, there were two covered, motorized
tenders and 12 inflatable life rafts that could be readied easily. The boats hung from
their davits on the bridge deck, just above the Promenade Deck. At the captains order,
the davits swung out-board, crewmen lowered the boats to the Promenade, and the
gates in the railing were opened. Thanks largely to the crew and the captain, the
launching of the craft, an immensely complicated operation, went off with scarcely a
hitch. One of the tenders got hung up in its davit and could not be lowered, but the other
boats soon began to take on their passengers.
As frequently happens in emergencies, a few dominant figures stood out from other
participants. Among the passengers, it was Henry J. Heinichen, a retired Army colonel,
who was with his wife, Leila, was a veteran of several Prinsendam cruises. Rousted
from bed, the Heinichens had assembled with others on the Lido terrace. The kitchen
was closed, and as time passed, the crew made do by offering dishes of ice cream to
the passengers, many of whom were already thoroughly chilled. "Outrages," Heinichen
said. Emergency or not, this did not conform to the high standards he expected of the
Holland America Line. Drawing a steward aside, Heinichen suggested he open the bar.
"It's locked up, sir," was the reply.
"Well, break the damned lock," the colonel commanded. The steward snapped to it, and
Heinichen supervised the dispensing of warming jiggers of brandy. Then he organized a
crew of men to setm up deck chairs and helped in the distribution of blankets. When the
supply was exhausted some passengers tore down the lounge draperies for warmth.
Passenger Audrey Gotal found her lifeboat full and volunteered to board a raft intended
only for crew. "We inflated one of the rafts, which is like an igloo with two openings at
opposite ends through which you enter, I took off my shoes because the heels could
puncture the raft, but I was wearing a coat, sweater, slacks, gloves. a roof over my
head, I thought. Nice and dry. Snug. This is going to be good. I sat in the bottom of the
raft surrounded by twenty crewmen. No one had secure the two openings and water
came pouring in. Suddenly I was sitting in seven or eight inches of water–and that's
where I remained."
By 6:30 a.m. the Prinsendam had discharged six lifeboats, four life rafts and one tender.
About 40 men remained on the ship, including Captain Wabeke. As he watched the
boats drop one by one over the side and make off into the darkness, he feared for the
many elderly passengers. How would they cope with the rigors of an open boat in frigid
water?
To Henry Heinichen, aboard lifeboat No. 1, the whole event had an air of unbelievability.
Only a few hours ago he and Leila had swept across the dance floor in graceful tango.
Now they were adrift in waves running up to 15 feet and swallowing hard to fight the
nausea. About 7:30 a.m., Heinichen was what appeared to be smoke on the horizon.
Soon he could discern the faint outline of an approaching ship. "Hey, turn this boat
around he said to the crewman at the motor. "There's a ship coming and we're headed
in the wrong direction."
It was the Williamsburgh, so heavily laden it had only 20 feet of freeboard and
resembled a floating atoll more than a vessel. The tanker came along side, and
crewmen dropped securing lines and lowered a Jacob's ladder. Then two of the crew
came down to assist. Even so, the evacuation of the lifeboat took over an hour, as one
by one the terrified passengers grasped the swinging ladder and slowly ascended to the
Williamsburgh's deck. At this rate it would take well into the next day to lift all the
passengers from the water. The weather was worsening. Hypothermia was a real
threat. Moreover it seemed unlikely that the other lifeboats could reach the tanker. All
were drifting aimlessly. The Heinichen's craft had a motor; the other power boat had
failed. So crowded were the rest of the boats that the hand-operated T-bars could not
be moved, and in any case their momentum was insufficient against the wind. The rafts,
of course, had no power at all. Nor could the gigantic Williamsburgh maneuver around
such tiny craft. If the passengers were to be rescued–and each passing hour counted
now––would have to be by some other means.
Daisy-Chain Airlift
In addition to the Coast Guard aircraft sent to the scene, Elmendorf Air Force Base at
Anchorage had dispatched a search and rescue helicopter. Since the burning ship lay
380 miles to he south, the helicopter was accompanied by an HC-130 modified to refuel
it in the air. Also, 600 miles south of Juneau, the Canadian Recue Coordination Center
at Comox, B.C., readied two helicopters and four planes.
The on-scene commander, circling the stricken ship, gave the order to begin lifting
survivors by helicopter from the boats and shuttling them to the Williamsburgh. The
Canadian helicopters, which were due in by the after noon, would assist. The Coast
Guard cutter Boutwell, already on its way, would arrive about 1:30 p.m. If weather or
time interfered with the air mission, this highly maneuverable ship could take over.
Shortly after sunrise, the area was alive with the Coast Guard's four helicopters, the
command HC-130, the Air Force's Jolly Green Giant" and the flying "gas station."
Rescue work demanded coolness and coordination. Bruce MeInick brought his HH-3
down to 30 feet above a lifeboat...then 25 feet...20. At that distance he couldn't see the
boat, and with the sea churning he couldn't be certain he was holding his hover position.
He had to rely on his hoist-cable crewman, Michael Oliverson. Wearing an earphonesand-microphone headset, and attached to the aircraft by a nylon belt, Oliverson leaned
out the door and talked his pilot down over the bobbing target. The rescue basket–2½
by 4 foot, and 18 inches deep–swung in the wind. It was operated by power winch, but
Oliverson had to play the cable manually to lower it straight down into the boat. If
allowed to sweep across the boat it could crack passengers' heads. As he waited for a
survivor to climb into the basket, he winched the cable in and out to avoid excess slack.
Once the basket was loaded, Oliverson started his winch just as the lifeboat was riding
the top of a wave. The survivor suddenly found himself dangling in midair, ascending.
Pulled into the aircraft, some passengers were so scared–eyes shut, hands clenched
around the edges of the basket–that a third crewman had to work to get them out.
It took a helicopter at least 30 minutes to hoist up a load, skip over to the Williamsburgh
and unload. It was a daisy-chain operation: as one chopper lifted off the helipad, the
command ship overhead gave the next permission to land.
By early afternoon the crews were exhausted. The hoist men's heavy leather gloves had
worn through to the palms from playing the steel cable. Their muscles grew cramped
from hauling in the loaded basket, but they kept at it. Melnick's crew alone rescued 110
people. Many of the passengers, despite their plight, displayed the same kind of
strength. Octogenarian Elsa Hutson found the whole experience an adventure. During
the first hour at sea in lifeboat No. 3 she didn't mind the boat's pitching motion. But the
wind picked up, and soon she was soaked from the waves crashing into the boat. She
vomited. The cold penetrated her bones, and exhauston swept over her. Still unafraid,
she told herself to keep a positive point of view. She thought about events in her long
life. She vividly recalled the mornings of her childhood when her mother sent her off to
school, saying, "May the spirit of the Lord go with you and protect you and make your
path easier. The Lord is my Sheppard, I shall not want." It always made her feel better
to remember that scene. She repeated the prayer now.
Marjorie Czeikowitz's legs were slow to recover from a stroke she had suffered two and
half years earlier. But she and her husband, Richard loved to travel; they'd decided her
wheelchair was no reason not to make the cruise. Without phenobarbital, she feared
she might have a seizure. Yet she knew she would survive this experience and board
another ship for a cruise–no question about it. A helicopter dipped in and hovered
above lifeboat No. 4, in which the Czeikowitzes huddled. The rescue basket descended
and swung into the side of the boat. Hoisted a few feet it swung again––and hit Marjorie
on the side of the head, knocking her unconscious.
"She'll be all right," a crewman calmed her frantic husband. "But you go up in the basket
and tell the helicopter crew what the situation is."
Marjorie revived aboard the Williamsburgh, where a physician examined her. He urged
her to stay flat, and that night he slept on the floor beside her bunk. Still crowded
together on boat No. 4 after the Czeikowitzes left were some 80 survivors, among them
schoolteacher Jeannie Gilmore. During the night, it had seemed to her that everybody
had begun to vomit at the same time. Some tried to be genteel, saying, "Excuse
me, please." But the vomited where they sat; there was no room for people to move to
the side of the boat even to relieve themselves. Yet when the sun rose Gilmore began
singing "oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'." She too, was certain of survival: "I had no
intention of dying in the Gulf of Alaska."
Shortly after noon a helicopter flew to the smoldering Prinsendam to begin removing the
remaining crew. This proved more difficult than the lifeboat operation. The stern of the
dead ship was rising and falling in great thrusts and yawing some 50 feet; twice the
hovering helicopter missed the stern with the hoist. The last to be lifted off was Captain
Wabeke. It was a terrible moment in his career. To the helicopter pilot, the Captain
looked cold and weary. "But despite the awful hours he had passed, he was wearing his
dress blues, with a white towel around his neck. He was very dignified as he shook
hands and thanked us."
Unexpected Guests
Flying South from Elmendorf AFB, flight surgeon Capt. Don Hudson had worried about
the problems ahead, especially about the elderly suffering from hypothermia. "The body
temperature drops," he explained later, "and all vital activities and functions slow down.
The heart is subject to irregularities. If we had one cardiac arrest, the sight of our trying
to resuscitate the person could arouse fear among the other passengers."
On the tanker, he told his patients to keep warm with a blanket around them–the
helicopters had unloaded plenty–and to drink as much water and as many warm liquids
as they could hold. He urged each passenger he examined to keep an eye on others
around him and seek help immediately for anyone in trouble.
Some survivors were cold as marble, totally unresponsive. A few were staggering into
walls. One disoriented man told the doctor, "I think I'll have the caviar; then a prime rib
of beef, medium rare."
By and large, however, Dr. Hudson was struck by the poise and self command of the
passengers. "Don't worry about me. I have this malaria attack once a year," said a
slight, elderly man with a temperture of 104 degrees Fahrenheit. "Go take care of the
sick people."
One woman was deeply depressed because she had left behind a large diamond ring
that represented most of her life's savings. Seen a few hours later, she seemed to be
feeling better. "I'm alive," she said. "I can start over."
By late afternoon the tanker had some 370 refugees aboard. Dr. Hudson dispensed
nearly 100 nitroglycerin tablets to heart patients, and nearly all the pills necessary to
combat nausea. But he issued only 6 tranquilizers and 12 sleeping pills.
"We were lucky," the doctor concluded. "If some of them had been out in the boats for
several more hours, I'm sure they would have succumbed."
The tanker's 31-man crew handled their 370 unexpected guests as if the occasion were
commonplace. The cooks, assisted by men from the "Prinsendam's kitchen, provided
every passenger on arrival with coffee or tea, and sandwiches. These remained
available day and night, and hot meals were served as well.
Clothing in the Williamsburgh's slop chests was handed out, and crewmen even opened
up their personal closets. Size-8 women wound up with men's size-38 jeans, extra large
T-shirts and size-10 shoes. The crew also turned over their quarters to the exhausted
survivors. Elsa Hutson hoped to find something soft to lie on. Wandering into a room
she saw one of the Prinsendam's young entertainers lying in bed, crying. Hutson tried to
comfort her. The young woman said, "Thank you. You remind me of my grandmother,
and I love her very much."
"Would you mind moving over and letting your grandmother crawl in with you?" she did.
At 6:10 the Boutwell reported: "All personnel from the Prinsendam recovered. Fire still
burning," Quiet jubilation rippled through the Coast Guard Recue Headquarters at
Juneau.
"Everybody had come out of this mess okay," reflected Cmdr. Richard Schoel. "Nobody
dead. Nobody seriously injured."
But at 7:20 p.m. came a startling message from Elmendorf AFB that not all Air Force
rescue officers were accounted for. "Two sergeants, John Cassidy and Jose Rios, are
unreported. Where are they?"
What had happened? Captain Wabeke had informed rescue headquarters that he was
lowering six boats. And six boats, as well as the four rafts, had been positively
confirmed as being emptied of all occupants. (An accurate count of passengers was not
possible, because four of the helicopters could not be refueled in the air. After shuttling
several loads to the Williamsburgh, they had headed to their base to refuel, taking a
load of survivors with them each time.)
Senior officers at rescue headquarters studied photographs of the Prinsendam taken
from the air that day. Enlargements showed davits for eight boats–the six lifeboats,
mentioned by the captain, and two tenders. One tender was still visible, hung up on a
davit. So seven boats had been launched, and one was still at sea, lost. Search aircraft
were useless in the black, fog filled night. It was up to the Boutwell to find the missing
craft.
Brave Men
The lost vessel, lifeboat No. 6, had been launched in the pre-dawn hours with a full
load of passengers. A Dutch crewman in charge said, "Row, we have to get away from
the ship; it can catch fire." By "row" he meant operate the push-pull T-lever, but as in the
other lifeboats, this was difficult, and slowly boat No. 6 had drifted away into the night.
Irving Brex, one of the passengers, had become separated from his wife, Isabelle, in the
confusion of abandoning ship. He worried about her safety. But was also concerned
about his ability to endure the night. a diabetic, he had left his insulin behind in the
stateroom.
Somehow he would have to draw on all his reserves. Near him, however, three barefoot
women in nightgowns huddled silently, chins on chests. Spray drenched them. Brex,
who had brought an extra sweater, handed it to one of them. After daylight Brex
occasionally saw a helicopter in the distance, a cheering sight. Finally one flew towards
them. It was the Jolly Green Giant from Elmendorf AFB under the command of Capt.
John Walters. In addition to his hoist man, he carried two specialists, Sergeants Cassidy
and Rios, dressed in insulated wet suits, who were prepared to drop from a low altitude
into the sea. Walters needed their expertise because his aircraft did not carry a basket
for rescue work. It used a projectile-shaped forest penetrator which, once down, could
be opened into a seat into which the passenger had to be securely buckled. Cassidy
and Rios would perform this task and make sure the projectile did not strike the boat.
Ten feet above the waves, the two men dropped. Rios climbed into the boat to help the
survivors: Cassidy remained in the water to retrieve the penetrator each time it was
lowered. But after pulling the penetrator to the boat more than 20 times, he was utterly
spent, sick from swallowing saltwater and being slammed repeatedly against the boat.
Helped aboard, he leaned over the side and vomited–and vomited. The hoist man now
had to maneuver the rescue device through the water to where the two sergeants could
haul it aboard.
Soon thereafter, Captain Walters was summoned to assist in taking men from the deck
of the Prinsendam. It was the first of several interruptions for lifeboat No. 6. By the time
Walters could return, fog was seeping in. The wind beat harder, and rain mixed with
sleet began to fall. Rios was buckling in the 50th passenger when a wave suddenly
lifted the boat high and swung the bow. The cable got caught between the rudder and
stern and, as the boat slid down into a wave trough, snapped as if it were a thread. The
penetrator was lost. For this aircraft the rescue mission was over. The time was then
1:50 p.m.
Walters informed the on-scene command plane that the boat No. 6 still contained 25 or
30 people. Subsequently, a partially loaded Coast Guard helicopter picked up a few of
them before departing to refuel ashore. Some 20 men and women, plus Rios and
Cassidy, remained. Cassidy, exhausted and cold, couldn't stop vomiting, but still he put
the passengers first. Irving Brex, his own condition worsening rapidly, watched him in
admiration. "He was deathly sick." Brex said, "He'd go to the side throw up, and then
turn around and comfort us."
Late in the afternoon, using survival equipment brought with him, Cassidy tried making
radio contact. No response. Then he heard an aircraft droning towards them, concealed
by the fog. Experience had taught him not to waste a flare on it–if you can't see the
target, the target won't see the flare–but he activated his electronic beacon. The signal
didn't last long enough for an aircraft to home in on the source. As night approached, a
passenger said, "They've forgotten us; they're going to leave us here to die."
"Oh, no," Cassidy assured him, "our Air Force people know we're out here. Rescue is
just a matter of time. Then he had all the passengers move to the front of the boat,
where he and Rios pulled a tarpaulin over them. "Your body heat will build up under
there," he said.
Cold but alert, Cassidy and Rios remained in the open stern. Thirty-five-knot winds
pelted them with rain, and the seas heaved to 30 feet. After seven hours of peering into
the night Cassidy detected a revolving light in the distance. It was the Boutwell, on its
diligent search. Rios lit a flare while Cassidy caught the beam of the search light with a
mirror and flashed it back to the ship. The Boutwell eased towards them and stopped
alongside. It was 1:15 a.m.
Hauled up to the deck of the Coast Guard cutter, Brex said, I can't stand," and
collapsed. Six pairs of arms lifted him and carried him to a table in the infirmary. He was
stripped, fed intravenously, bathed twice, and given solid food, and anti-seasickness
pills and insulin. Then he was wrapped in blankets and carried to a bunk. He said later,
"I wasnever so mothered in my entire life."
The last man to leave lifeboat No. 6 was Sergeant Cassidy. By then it was 2:30 a.m.
Totally Successful
The following afternoon the Boutwell reached Sitka with 87survivors, to join
with 60 others already flown down from Yakutat. That evening the tanker
Williamsburgh–arrived at Valdez with its roster of 370 more. In both towns, officials
from Holland America Cruises asked drug and clothing store to open. Passengers were
given whatever they needed at the line's expense, and local residents overwhelmed
them with kindness.
Most survivors were euphoric. They had lost precious possessions, but they were safe.
After bathing and putting on clean clothes–either from a store or the contributions of
generous Alaskans–many sat around their hotel bars before dinner, laughing frequently,
bantering and generally behaving like people on holiday.
At the Valdez hospital Marjorie Czeikowitz was examined and found unharmed by the
blow to her head. a pharmacist delivered her pre-ordered medications and the staff lent
her a wheelchair, saying, "Don't worry about getting it back. We'll pick it up after you and
your husband leave the airport."
On October 6, a week after her glittering departure from Vancouver, the Prinsendam
drifted aimlessly at two knots, her insides still smoldering. The Mellon, a Coast Guard
cutter, tracked her at a distance of one and a half miles in a kind of a deathwatch. Early
that afternoon, the cutter's crew heard a small explosion and saw a rising plume of
heavy black smoke. Captain Wabeke, aboard the cutter, attributed the smoke to the
ignition of 15 rolls of carpeting stored on the top two decks.
The following morning a nine-man team, including Captain Wabeke and Chief Engineer
Boot, was airlifted to the ship. Arie Van Noort, a Holland America Cruises vice president
and former Captain of the Prinsendam, had flown to Alaska from New York to supervise
a salvage operation. The team landed beside the swimming pool, aft of the Lido
restaurant. There, under Webeke's supervision, they cut through the anchor chain and
made fast a steel hawser to an oceangoing tug that had come out from Vancouver. By
4:30 p.m. the tow was secure.
In the meantime, the weather had worsened; the team could not be evacuated. They
made a hurried inspection. The source of the fire, the engine room, was sealed off, and
in all likelihood the blaze there was out. But because the main dining room had also
caught, the fire had been free to burn both upward and downward. Wabeke was
astonished at the damage the fire had cause in so short a time. He instructed the team
to inflate one of the canopied life rafts. They the set it up next to the empty swimming
pool, where the men spent the night, camped in the Prinsendam's ruins, like refugees
returning to a war devastated home. No comforting throb of engines lulled their fitful
slumber––only the wind and waves.
Towards dawn, the fire reflashed with a great roar and burst out thick portholes as if
they were cellophane. The team radioed the Mellon, and at 7:30 a.m. a Coast Guard
helicopter hoisted the men to safety. Water was pouring in the broken portholes,
causing a 15-degree list that increased with each hour.
To Van Noort, it seemed the end. He had been involved with the Prinsendam since its
inception, watched its birth from delivery of the first steelwork to the yards. He was chief
mate on the maiden voyage and later became captain, until going ashore to take up his
executive duties. "She was like a child to me," he said. Within 24 hours the list had
increased to 30 degrees, and the ship was making languid rolls that submerged the
starboard side of the main deck and allowed immense amounts of water to pour in. The
port side was so hot that splashing waves turned to steam.
On October 11, a week after the engine room flared into flames, the list increased to 40
degree, exposing the port stabilizer. By 8:30 a.m. the tug's tow line had been released,
and the cruise ship rolled ponderously, remained on her starboard side, and slowly
sank. "One of the worst moments of my life," said Captain Wabeke.
No evidence remained of one of the great ship disasters of our time, and of the largest
totally successful air-sea rescue operations in maritime history. Nothing remained,
except memory.
In November 1981 the Dutch Marine Court of Inquiry held hearings on the Prinsendam
disaster. On December 7 it found that the captain, chief engineer and chief mate (in
charge of the fire brigades) had erred in dealing with the emergency. Those parties held
to be partly responsible for the disaster were disqualified from serving on any vessel of
the Dutch merchant navy for periods ranging from three weeks to two months.
Weak as these penalties might appear, the reputations and careers of these officers
were severely damaged. But such assessments are not entirely adequate. Judgment
was passed on men who acted, some of the time, imperfectly. On those responsible for
establishing safety regulations that are truly safe, no verdict was passed.