Safety first at sea
Safety first at sea
During the years 1960 and 1961 nearly 200 ships, totalling more than three quarters of a million gross tons, were lost at sea. The exact figures were 114 ships of 418,195 tons in 1960 and 78 ships of 355,362 tons In 1961. But while details are available for ships of a certain size only vessels over 500 tons are Included In the figures given above it ls quite impossible to obtain precise figures for small craft or the loss of life by drowning.
The most nearly authoritative guesses speak of about 200,000 lives lost annually In every kind of drowning accident from a collision between passenger liners in the North Atlantic to the destruction of scores of tiny fishing vessels and their crews by a typhoon in the Far East. Accidents at sea are thus so numerous that the dead go unnumbered. The sea is still cruel and there are times when even the best-found, best-handled ship is at its mercy.