GERMAN COASTER "AROSETTE" IN TROUBLE
Arosette in serious trouble
Manoeuvering at very close quarters
Captain Paul Levesley at Senlac's controls
Louis Marchesi approaches Arosette
Louis Marchesi comes in close for the axe to be passed across
Deck cargo being jettisoned
All photos courtesy of Ray Griffiths & Mick Cutler. Hi-res images from Newhaven Museum
Drama off Eastbourne
By Mick Cutler - Words by Andy Gilbert
On the 3rd July 1978, the German coaster Arosette got into serious difficulties off Eastbourne. Her internal cargo of steel had shifted and she had taken on a heavy and dangerous list to starboard.
Newhaven Lifeboat Louis Marchesi of Round Table was despached but it was the car ferry Senlac that was first on the scene. Her Master Captain Paul Levesley displayed some superb ship handling as he manoeuvered Senlac to create a lee to protect Arosette. This meant getting Senlac as close as possible to the stricken coaster and then keeping station with her as she drfited.
This was achieved, as can be seen in the photos of Captain Levesley at the starboard bridge wing telegraphs on Senlac, by putting one engine ahead and the other astern. Together with a matching rudder movement, this will tend to swing the ship on the spot. It's also possible to use the ship's bow thruster to assist this manoeuvre, but in these circumstances, it's likely that it wasn't used as it could have ingested some of the floating timber.
The photo of Captain Levesley at the controls shows Senlac's port engine astern, starboard engine ahead and port rudder applied, swinging her to port. This is a commonly used manoeuvre on a small twin screw vessel like a tug, but much more difficult, and therefore uncommon, on a ferry of Senlac's size. What's more, Captain Levesley had to keep this up for quite some time.
Newhaven Lifeboat arrived and managed to pass an axe to the crew of Arosette, enabling them to cut free the remainder of her deck cargo of timber, creating quite a large 'wood slick'. This corrected the list enough for Arosette to be brought safely into port.
This excellent sequence of photos was taken by one of Senlac's engineers, Ray Griffiths, and passed to his colleague, Mick Cutler. Newhaven Museum holds slightly better quality prints and Curator Peter Bailey has kindly allowed Our Newhaven to scan them and use them here.