Source: http://cuxpedia.de/index.php?title=FAIRPLAY_I

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The tugboat FAIRPLAY I was involved in one of the most tragic ship crashes of recent times before Cuxhaven. [1]

"The people on the coast held their breath on September 6, 1954." The drama of FAIRPLAY: Radio operators give knock signals. Captain's son missing "rattled from the editorial staff's teletype. In fact, what was happening that day on the Elbe off Cuxhaven couldn't be beaten in terms of drama. It is certainly one of the most moving events in the history of the FAIRPLAY shipping company. What was Thousands of onlookers populated the Steubenhöft in Cuxhaven to observe the mooring maneuver of the 22,000 gross tonne ocean liner 'ITALIA', which was expected from a trip to New York. The Steubenhöft actually allowed large ships to dock without tug assistance, but Captain Pabst , who only managed the ITALIA on a representative basis and who was not so familiar with mooring in Cuxhaven, preferred to request a tugboat. On board the tug there were n next to the crew o two wives of crew members as well as the captain's five-year-old son and an eleven-year-old girl as guests on board. It was a beautiful day, and the journey was only to go a few hundred meters into the Elbe. You would be back in less than half an hour. But it should be very different.

FAIRPLAY I came up from aft after a turning maneuver on the starboard side [2] of the ITALIA and maneuvered very close to the large ship to take over the hawser. This is the most critical moment in every 'job' with conventionally powered tractors. The tug must come close to the sea-going vessel while maintaining a certain speed in order to remain controllable and to maintain a speed reserve vis-à-vis the towed ship. The bow wave of the tug hits that of the towed ship, hits the bow [3] and comes back with force. If the tug pushes beyond the bow of the ship, one-sided leverage is created at its stern, while its bow is already in calm water. This pushes the tug [4] away from the bow of the seagoing vessel, so that the tug is in danger of turning in front of the bow of the slowly moving ship. A slight correction is usually sufficient to get the tractor back on track, but it remains a difficult maneuver because electricity and wind also play a role. Captain Reese shouldn't succeed.

Both vehicles drove Steven [5] side by side to Steven. FAIRPLAY I had just made a loose line connection when the tug got caught in the swell of the ITALIA's bow swell. Captain Reese calmly put the helm to starboard and picked up speed. But his tug was not released from the mighty hull. The leverage of the bow wave, which was intensified by the tidal current coming from aft, was too strong. The bow of the tug was pushed away more and more by the passenger steamer, while its stern came closer and closer to its starboard stem and finally hit it. Reese was now at the highest speed. And indeed the bow of the tug came out of the bow swell due to the forward movement, but its stern got into it. The tug was tugged to port, heeled [6]
FAIRPLAY I in front of the bow of ITALIA

Starboard, straightened up, got right in front of the ITALIA and was in danger of being overrun. There, the machines were immediately set to 'full back' so that the steamer's travel went down and a collision could just be avoided. The bulge of water that the passenger ship was pushing ahead could now be the tug to the savior or doom. In fact, everything seemed to be going well. The bow wave pushed the tug, which had again been given a substantial turn [7] to starboard, away to port [8], so that the stern of the ITALIA glided past him with great precision. FAIRPLAY I scraped along the steamer's port wall and was finally released. The passengers and crew on board the passenger ship caught their breath. They waited for the tug, which was obviously undamaged, to stand up again. But he stayed on the starboard side for minutes. Water entered the interior through an open companionway and the skylights of the engine room and the lodge, making it impossible to stand up. The tractor then rolled over, capsized and drifted, lying upside down, in the stern water of the ITALIA. Finally FAIRPLAY I sagged with the aft ship [9], while the bow, held by trapped air, still remained on the water surface.


It was only seconds when the misfortune had happened. His aftermath, however, took hours of horror. Anyone on the tug's deck jumped into the water or saved themselves on the wreck. Lifebuoys were immediately thrown into the water by ITALIA. A few minutes after the sinking the tugs and diving vehicles `Danzig´,` Otto Wulff II´ and `Otto Wulff III´,` Jason´ and `Vorwärts´ as well as the customs cruiser` Kedingen´ and the passenger ship `Jan Molsen´ were on the spot to take the shipwrecked. Two men were missing. The little son of the captain, who had slept in a bunk [10], and the radio operator Ernst Reich, who had free watch, had to be in the ship. Captain Reese, who had lost his other son to pneumonia three weeks earlier, initially refused to leave the wreck of his ship until the missing people were rescued. Fortunately, the wreck stayed that way for the time being. The stern and aft mast had drilled into the ground and supported it, while an air bubble held the bow up. The vehicles returned to Cuxhaven with the rescued, where the ITALIA also ran. The horror was on the face of the people on board. Only the tug Danzig and Otto Wulff II stayed outside.

As Danzig tried to pull the wreck out of the fairway, the men suddenly heard knocking signals from the capsized hull. The rescue work was immediately interrupted to prevent the tractor from breaking apart and a boat with doctors was sent to the scene of the accident. The Gdańsk radio operator climbed onto the wreck and answered. The trapped was unharmed. He had flown out of the bunk in a high arc during the accident and had groped himself into the room with the air bubble. Here he was waiting for rescue in complete darkness. Attempts to cut open the bow protruding from the water were quickly abandoned. The danger was too great that the air would escape through the hole and the wreck would sink before the man could be rescued. Right at the start of the salvage, the Bugsier shipping company's 'endurance' lifting ship was called to Cuxhaven. It was supposed to raise the capsized tug, but it would take ten hours to travel from Hamburg to the mouth of the Elbe - too long to be able to help the trapped. A diving rescuer needed to be used on submarines. German, British and even American naval stations were called from Danzig, but none of them could get one quickly enough.

At around 6:00 p.m., a Otto Wulff II diver tried to get into the tugboat with backwater at the risk of life. During this attempt to salvage at a depth of about 20 meters, the wreckage began to spin and at the last moment the diver was brought back to the surface. The salvage vehicles lying on either side of the wreck sheared lines under it to hold it if it was to be pulled around by the ebb flow. The helpers were desperate. With Morse code, they gave courage to the trapped radio operator and still didn't know what to do for him. At the latest when the tide started, the wreck would start to move and sink completely. The last act of the drama began at 9:00 p.m. With the water running off, the tractor moved. When the movement became too strong, the tether lines had to be cut to avoid endangering the salvage ships. The air escaped from the ship with a large fountain, which finally sank. The included radio operator had given Morse code almost until the end.

During the night the lifting ship 'Endurance' started to recover the wreck, but the strong current caused great difficulties for the divers. They were only able to work for a short time with backwater, so it took a full four days for the wreck to be lifted. Again thousands lined the Elbe dyke and the Steubenhöft. But this time no happy anticipation, no laughing. In silence, they watched the wreck of the FAIRPLAY I slowly come to the surface again and lay on the ground in the shallow water of the American port of Cuxhaven. The radio operator was also found here. He was sitting in a corner of the preload with a peaceful face. The lack of oxygen made him tired just before the wreck sank and he fell asleep forever. The dead Werner Reese was found in the bunk of the wheelhouse, where his father had put him to sleep. A quick death had surprised him there. The tractor itself had hardly been damaged in the accident and could be repaired again. There was grief on the coast. There was no one to blame for this tragedy. The Maritime Office could not accuse anyone of wrongdoing. Once again, it was the bow wave of a towed ship that - in this case, amplified by the tide current - had ruined a tug. "
Footnotes

The text has been taken from the source literally (see below), since in the opinion of the adjuster, any change would be a loss.
right side
Front of the ship
Ship back
Bow tip
tipped
Lateral position
Left
Stern
Bed in the ship
Water standstill during the phase between high and low tide, or low and high tide

    pulled

Video from the recovery of the fair play
source

Literal text and images courtesy of the FAIRPLAY shipping company from:

    `Sea-going assistance and tug shipping through the ages, fair play tugboat shipping company Richard Borchard´

    Published by Elbe-Spree Verlag Hamburg