Macau ferry 'Fat Shan'

Submitted by IDJ

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The 'Fat Shan' is lying in front of the beached freighter. Around six freighters and a tanker were beached around this bay. The picture was taken from Tsing Yi Island. IDJ

Date picture taken (may be approximate):

Thursday, August 19, 1971

Gallery:

1970s Hong Kong

Connections:

Macau ferry 'Fat Shan' shows Event 1971 Typhoon Rose

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In the 'aftermath' of Typhoon

Permalink Submitted by masang on Wed, 2013-11-27 15:46.

In the 'aftermath' of Typhoon Rose,17 August,1971.A total of 80 plus people died on the 'Fat Shan' alone.

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Such a tragic picture. Here

Permalink Submitted by gweilo8888 on Thu, 2014-08-14 16:42.

Such a tragic picture. Here is a PDF scan of a period magazine containing a fairly high-res shot from the SCMP, showing six ships in all. They're identified beneath as being the Fernbank, Winfield Trader, Gallantry, Koyoho Maru [sic], Kaohsiung, and of course the Fatshan, onboard which 88 of 92 souls perished.

The photo in the document above shows the stretch of coastline from the Pa Tau Kwu promontory to Ngam Hau Shek. Perhaps surprisingly for Hong Kong, it's basically unchanged. There is still a memorial on the hillside above the beach, too.

Another publication, "Climatological Data: National summary, Volume 22", has a list of all the vessels beached or sunk in Typhoon Rose, incidentally. The vessels from above are listed, and I've added further details including exact identifications where possible in square brackets.

Winfield Trader (Panama, 11,038 grt) [converted bulk carrier, ex-1953 Huntfield, of Hunting & Son, Newcastle, IMO 5156866. Photo here.]

Fernbank (Norway, 8,981 grt) [cargo, 1955, Eriksbergs Mekaniska Verkstad, Gothenburg, Sweden. Details here; pics here and here]

Gallantry (Panama, 7,582 grt) [cargo, ex-1955 Talinga, Blyth Docks and Shipbuilding, Northumberland, England. Details here; pic here]

Kyoho Maru (Japan, 2,998 grt) [might be: cargo, 1965, built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Shimonseki, Japan, IMO 6602355.]

Fatshan (Great Britain, 2,637 grt) [ferry, 1933, built by Taikoo Dockyard, Hong Kong, IMO 5112846. Second vessel by this name. Details here; pics here and here]

Kaohsiung (Panama, 1,289 grt) [Pic here, but I'm not sure the Hong Kong Observatory identified it correctly, because its position doesn't match any vessel in the SCMP pic, and they say it's in Penny's Bay which is further around the corner from here.]

In the SCMP pic, the ship at front left is Gallantry. The ship furthest away on the tip of the promontory is Winfield Trader, according to an SCMP front page from August 18, 1971. That leaves Fernbank at far right of the picture, and obviously Fatshan mostly submerged in front of the promontory in the distance.

By process of elimination, the vessel in the background of your pic must be the Kyoho Maru or Kaohsiung, because we have pictures of every other vessel and she doesn't match any of them. She's sitting on the rough "beach" at Pa Tau Kwu Pak Wan.

You can see both Kyoho Maru / Kaohsiung and the Fatshan in much more detail in this picture. Also, there's a color aerial photo of Fatshan's wreck here, taken after Kyoho Maru / Kaohsiung had been removed.