Royston Grange

[Administrator]

On the 11th May 1972, the Houlder Line’s 7,113 ton Royston Grange, was outward bound in the River Plate from Buenos Aires to London with a cargo of chilled and frozen beef and butter. On board were 61 crew, 12 passengers (including six women and a 5-year old child) and the Argentinian pilot. At 0540, as she traversed the Punta Indio Channel in dense fog, she collided with the Liberian-registered tanker Tien Chee, carrying 20,000 tons of crude oil. The Tien Chee immediately burst into flames and a series of explosions rapidly carried the flames to the Royston Grange where most of the crew and passengers were asleep. Although the Royston Grange did not sink, all 74 on board were killed. This is surprising since the Royston Grange had split accommodation with the Deck Officers & passengers separated from the engineers and crew accommodation by a cargo hatch. The reason for this grim statistic seems to be that following what would appear to have been an initial fireball of vapour, the cargo of butter and the hold insulation ignited resulting in an inferno which would have been impossible to survive. The Tien Chee also caught fire and eight of her forty Chinese crew died but the remainder, along with her Argentinian pilot, managed to abandon ship and were picked up by cutters of the Argentine Naval Prefecture.

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