Captain Anderson
Captain Anderson commanded the Cunard steamer Scotia, one of the finest vessels in the renowned transatlantic fleet. On April 13, 1867, with a smooth sea and moderate breeze, the Scotia lay in longitude 15° 12' and latitude 45° 37', traveling at 13.43 knots under the thrust of its 1,000-horsepower engines. At 4:17 in the afternoon, during a high tea for passengers gathered in the main lounge, a collision occurred, scarcely noticeable on the whole, affecting the Scotia's hull in that quarter a little astern of its port paddle wheel. The Scotia had not run afoul of something; it had been fouled, and by a cutting or perforating instrument rather than a blunt one. This encounter seemed so minor that nobody on board would have been disturbed by it, had it not been for the shouts of crewmen in the hold, who climbed on deck yelling, "We're sinking! We're sinking!"
Immediate Response and Damage Assessment
Captain Anderson hastened to reassure the frightened passengers. Divided into seven compartments by watertight bulkheads, the Scotia could brave any leak with impunity. He immediately made his way into the hold and discovered that the fifth compartment had been invaded by the sea, and the speed of this invasion proved that the leak was considerable. Fortunately this compartment did not contain the boilers, because their furnaces would have been abruptly extinguished. Captain Anderson called an immediate halt, and one of his sailors dived down to assess the damage. Within moments they had located a hole two meters in width on the steamer's underside. Such a leak could not be patched, and with its paddle wheels half swamped, the Scotia had no choice but to continue its voyage. By then it lay 300 miles from Cape Clear, and after three days of delay that filled Liverpool with acute anxiety, it entered the company docks.
The Aftermath and Investigation
The engineers then proceeded to inspect the Scotia, which had been put in dry dock. They could not believe their eyes. Two and a half meters below its waterline, there gaped a symmetrical gash in the shape of an isosceles triangle. This breach in the sheet iron was so perfectly formed, no punch could have done a cleaner job of it. Consequently, it must have been produced by a perforating tool of uncommon toughness—plus, after being launched with prodigious power and then piercing four centimeters of sheet iron, this tool had needed to withdraw itself by a backward motion truly inexplicable. This was the last straw, and it resulted in arousing public passions all over again. Indeed, from this moment on, any maritime casualty without an established cause was charged to the monster's account. The incident with the Scotia, and Captain Anderson's role in documenting it, provided the crucial evidence that convinced the public and the scientific community that the menace was real and demanded a decisive response.
