On the 3rd of August, 1991, the cruise ship Oceanos set out from East London in South
Africa for the last leg of a pleasure cruise with around 570 people on board.
Just hours after its departure, in some of the worst weather the vessel had ever encountered,
a large contingent of the senior crew would pile into a lifeboat and flee the ship, leaving
hundreds of passengers on board, many of them unaware that the Oceanos was sinking.
The Oceanos was first launched in 1952.
She was initially named the Jean Laborde, and owned by a French merchant shipping company.
In the years which followed she changed hands numerous times, and was repeatedly renamed,
repainted, refurbished and repurposed.
In the 1970s, she was acquired by Epirotiki Lines, a Greek company that operated a range
of cargo and passenger ships.
Their fleet had been decimated during the Second World War, but ever since then they
had been slowly expanding their operations around the world.
Their new acquisition was renamed the Oceanos, and put to work offering luxury cruises.
It was a job she was well-suited for: across seven decks she had two lounges, an opulent
Byzantine dining room, eight different sizes of passenger cabin, and a top deck swimming
pool.
She was also equipped with eight lifeboats.
On the 31st of July, the Oceanos left Cape Town for a seven-day cruise up the coast to
Durban and back, with stops at Port Elizabeth and East London on the way.
The trip went relatively smoothly until the 3rd of August, when she was due to leave East
London.
Her departure from this port was delayed for a few hours by a bomb threat… and once this
had been resolved she set sail into a rapidly worsening storm.
Waves reached heights of nine metres (or 30 feet), and winds howled around the ship at
75 kilometres an hour (or 46 miles per hour).
The weather conditions were so bad that the conventional “sail away” party that would
be held on deck whenever the ship set sail was moved indoors.
Even inside, though, conditions were far from ideal.
As the evening’s dinner service began, plates slid from tables, and waiters stumbled and
fell with fully loaded trays.
This was a sight that alarmed Moss and Tracy Hills, a husband-and-wife team of entertainers
who had been employed by the cruise line as musicians.
They had been on board the ship in rough weather before, but had never witnessed the highly-trained
wait staff dropping trays or spilling drinks.
Despite this, the waiters continued to serve dinner.
That is, until about 9:30pm, when a loud booming sound was heard.
Instantly, the lights went out and the steady throb of the engines died.
Something was very clearly wrong.
The Hills, keen to keep everyone calm and happy despite the rough conditions, got on
stage and played music for around an hour… but with each passing minute the apprehension
that something was seriously wrong grew worse and worse.
Now the ship was not just rolling, but beginning to list steadily to one side.
Moss Hills was joined by a fellow entertainer, magician Julian Butler.
Together they went in search of a senior crewmember to try and determine what was happening.
As they ventured below decks, they noticed significant flooding… as well as many of
the crew urgently packing bags and donning lifejackets.
Though nobody had officially announced it, it was clear that the ship was in danger of
sinking.
Moss and Julian went back up to the lounge, and watched as lifeboats full of senior crewmembers,
along with a small number of passengers, were launched.
Moss then encountered Cruise Director Lorraine Betts, and was extremely surprised when she
told him that the Captain had given the order to abandon ship.
As most of the crew were unavailable, Moss, Tracy, Julian and fellow entertainer Robin
Boltman began to launch lifeboats, packing as many people as possible into each.
The increasing list of the ship made this a perilous job, especially as they were not
sailors and had no idea how to properly handle the boats.
To stabilise the lifeboats, Moss stood with one foot on the deck of the Oceanos, and one
foot in a lifeboat…
quickly retreating to the deck when the lifeboat swung too far away.
After some time they ran out of lifeboats that could be safely lowered.
Unsure what to do next, Moss, Julian and Tracy went to the Bridge, intent on speaking directly
to the Captain.
The Captain, however, was not there.
Neither was anyone else.
The ship had been well and truly abandoned.
The Captain had even left behind his pet canary, which was later freed from its cage by entertainer
Robin Boltman, to give it a chance at survival.
The entertainers took it in turns to use the ship’s radio to call for assistance, and
were eventually able to get in touch with the Captain of another nearby ship.
When asked where the Oceanos was, Moss replied: “I don’t really know, somewhere between
East London and Durban.”
Frustrated, the speaker asked for the actual co-ordinates, which Moss also did not know.
The speaker then asked for Moss’s rank, to which he replied:
“Well, I’m not a rank.
I’m the guitarist.”
"What are you doing on the bridge?" asked the speaker.
"Well, there's nobody else here," replied Moss.
"Who's on the bridge with you?" asked the speaker.
Moss Hills explained that he was on the bridge with his wife, who played bass, and another
entertainer, who was a magician.
After a lengthy pause, the speaker instructed Moss on how to determine the ship’s position,
and began organising rescue helicopters.
While the helicopters made their way out to the floundering ship, Moss went in search
of Captain Yiannis Avranas.
Cruise Director Lorraine Betts said that she had stopped the Captain from boarding one
of the lifeboats, and encouraged him to remain on board.
And it appeared he had done so.
Moss found him smoking a cigarette at the back of the ship along with a small huddle
of officers.
The Captain appeared to be in a state of shock.
When questioned, he would respond only vaguely, repeatedly saying that further action was
“not necessary”.
When the helicopters did arrive, Captain Avranas insisted that he be one of the first to be
winched to safety, so that he could better co-ordinate the rescue effort from above.
He was duly taken off the ship on the second helicopter to arrive.
This still left hundreds of people to be lifted to safety.
This was an arduous process.
Lines could be lowered from hovering helicopters to winch passengers aboard two by two.
The high winds meant that some passengers sustained injuries as they were blown into
railings or other parts of the ship during their ascent.
Moss Hills was recruited to help get people into the harness ready to be lifted, while
Tracy Hills organised the passengers into groups to ensure the most vulnerable could
be airlifted first.
While they waited their turn, passengers were gathered in the lounge, where entertainer
and cabaret artist Alvon Collinson helped them pass the time by singing songs.
He made a point of modifying his regular catalogue a little, quickly switching to a different
song when he realised that his rendition of “American Pie” by Don McLean included
the unfortunate lyric, “This’ll be the day that I die.”
Outside, passengers clung to the rails of an increasingly listing ship.
Two by two they were winched to safety by a series of Air Force helicopters – a painstakingly
slow process given how little time there seemed to be left.
As the tilt of the ship became yet more acute, a few passengers fell or jumped in panic into
the water, but were retrieved each time either by one of the few sailors who had remained
behind, or by Julian Butler, the magician, who was now assisting a navy diver on board
an inflatable rescue craft.
The entertainers were among the last people to be retrieved from the deck, just 45 minutes
before the ship disappeared beneath the water altogether.
Thanks to their efforts, and the efforts of the crew who had remained behind, it was found
that every single person on board had been safely evacuated.
In the aftermath of the sinking, Captain Yiannis Avranas was criticised for having contributed
little to the evacuation, and for having left so early when so many people remained on board.
In response to this criticism he argued that he could better co-ordinate the evacuation
from the helicopter, and said that he had tried to return to the ship, but had been
unable to do so due to the high winds.
In a later interview, he said, “When I order abandon the ship, it doesn’t matter what
time I leave.
Abandon is for everybody.
If some people like to stay, they can stay.”
He was found by a board of inquiry to have been negligent in his handling of the accident,
but faced no significant legal repercussions, and continued to work as a Captain on board
smaller vessels until his retirement.
It was found that the cause of the sinking was incomplete maintenance works.
Engineers had been working on a repair to the ship’s waste disposal system, but had
not completed it – leaving a pipe and a valve exposed.
In calm weather conditions this would not have been an issueS, but the extremely large
waves of the storm were able to impact this valve and damage it, creating a hole through
which water flooded into the ship.
Moss Hills continued to work on cruise ships, and later became a cruise director and motivational
speaker.
Tracy Hills became a jewellery designed, but still holidayed on cruise ships with her husband.
Cruise Director Lorraine Betts founded a company that sells clothing and equipment on board
cruise ships.
Julian Butler became a property manager, but continued to perform as a magician now and
then.
Robin Boltman also continued to work as an entertainer, while also becoming a pub landlord.
The wreck of the Oceanos lies where she sank, almost a hundred metres (or 328 feet) beneath
the waves.
Due to a series of truly exceptional circumstances, the wreck site is the grave only of a ship,
and not of any of those who sailed on her.