Lost Ship Needed Fire Preventive
By George Horne
The Coast Guard's inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of the bulk carrier Marine Sulphur Queen early in February ended its second week of testimony in New York yesterday and adjourned until next week.
At yesterday's session an official of Marine Transport Lines testified that the ship's missing master, Capt. J. D. Fanning, had asked for additional steam fire-smothering facilities, and that the installation of this equipment had been on the list of repairs scheduled for the vessel's next drydocking.
The ship, carrying a load of molten sulphur, left Beaumont, Tex., on Feb. 2 bound for Norfolk. The last heard from the converted tanker was a day or two later when a seaman sent a personal message ashore. The ship and her 39 men disappeared.
Some debris and several life-jackets were found some days later after a wide search by surface craft and airplanes. A man's shirt was attached to one lifering, and another jacket appeared to have been used.
A tentative Coast Guard evaluation of the evidence is that perhaps two crew members survived whatever happened to the vessel and then drowned or were attacked by predatory fish.
The captain's request for more fire-smothering equipment was related by Albert A. Morrison of Holmdel, N.J., assistant marine superintendent of the ship line.
Earlier witnesses had told of a series of minor fires around the special tanks carrying the hot sulphur. They said the fires appeared to be from gases, and one likened them to burning cognac around a Christmas pudding in that they flared up and then were quickly spent.
Captain Fanning had told Mr. Morrison at the end of a voyage in December that steam coming from the deck vents was from the void spaces around the special tanks. He saw fumes coming from the vents and for three days had applied the steam fire-fighting system. No actual fires were seen, the captain said.
Mr. Morrison said the master "assured me that there was nothing unusual" about the "few" fires.
Rear Admiral James D. Craik, who is presiding at the inquiry, asked the marine superintendent: "Were you a little perturbed?"
"Well, yes," Mr. Morrison replied.
He added that the captain had believed the steam system for smothering fires was adequate, but felt that additional equipment would "be an asset" to the ship.
Expert witnesses, including a chemist associated with the Texas Sulphur Company, shipper of the cargo, have testified that scientists did not believe that molten sulphur could have exploded on contact with the water.
Several ships of the Marine Sulphur Queen class -- she was a T-2 tanker built to a World War II design -- have cracked and split. But the inquiry so far has developed nothing to explain how the ship, even if she had split, could have gone down so quickly as to leave no trace.
"It is just hard to believe," Mr. Morrison said.
New York Times, 6 April 1963