I refer to Victoria Pace Ross’s letter of February 28 (‘Star of Malta’) whereby she requested any information about the incident.
I recall that way back in 2009, John Buchanan of Milford On Sea, Lymington, Hampshire, England, had come over to Malta to further a detailed study he was conducting on the Star of Malta.
Among other interesting facts, he reports and details that on July 29, 1955, at about 8 am (rather than in April, 1953, as Pace Ross writes) while returning from Syracuse, the Star of Malta ran aground in thick early mist on the Mercanti Reef some 200 feet off Dragonara Point and capsized.
The ship was carrying 57 passengers. Some were on deck at the time while others were preparing to go to breakfast.
Some passengers and crew swam ashore or were picked up by a fleet of small boats, which came to their assistance.
The second cook, A. Grech, drowned and a passenger, Mary Borg, was unaccounted for. Malta had lost its only sea link with Sicily. The Royal Navy sent the destroyer HMS Scorpion to pick up stranded passengers in Sicily.
In August that year the Star of Malta was refloated and towed to the Rodriques shipyard in Messina, where she was repaired.
A hand stamp “Damaged by seawater/ex Star of Malta 29.7.55” was applied to all letters, cards etc, salvaged from the wreck.
Two months later she returned to Malta in much the same foggy conditions as when she went aground. She was under the command of Captain Velkjo Hajjia, a Yugoslav.
That incident apart, for all intents and purposes, some other interesting facts emerged
On September 19, assessors from the maritime inquiry into the circumstances which led to the grounding of the Star of Malta found that the responsibility for the accident rested squarely on the master of the vessel, Commodore S.G. Kent.
However, Kent’s blameless record as master was taken into full consideration by the assessors, who felt they could do no less than recommend that his master’s ticket be suspended for 12 months from the date of the grounding.
That incident apart, for all intents and purposes, some other interesting facts emerged.
She was sold in March 1966 to Cantieri Navali delle Grazie, La Spezia, Italy, where she was broken up, thus ending 41 years in a variety of interesting roles.
The MV Star of Malta was launched in 1925 as the luxury yacht Camargo. She was built for a wealthy American Julius Fleischmann of Cincinnati, who was an expert yachtsman.
While cruising on board Camargo in the South Pacific with his wife and two children he secretly created maps that were later used by the US government when attacking the many Japanese-held islands during World War II.
In 1938, Camargo was sold to the President of the Dominican Republic, Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo, and renamed Ramfis.
In 1942 she was acquired by the US Navy, converted for naval service and commissioned as USS Marcasite (PY-28) on May 12, 1942, with Lt. Cdr Leander Jeffrey in command.
She saw service at Pearl Harbour, escorting merchant ships operating in the Hawaiian Islands. Having left Pearl Harbour she was next stationed at Seattle, where she served as a patrol and weather station ship. She was decommissioned on October 5, 1944, and sold that same month for conversion to commercial use and renamed Comando.
In 1947 she was acquired by the Minster SS Co. Ltd (Mitchell Cotts & Co. Malta) and renamed Westminster. In 1952 she was sold to a Maltese, Paul M. Laferla, who operated her thrice weekly as the passenger ferry Star of Malta between Malta and Syracuse. The vessel also carried mail.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece