The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-08-07 00:00:00

THE STEAM-YACHT ACCIDENT ON
THE LAKE OF BIENNE.

A Correspondent writes to the Daily Nem from Geneva :
" The steam-yacht Neptune, which foundered on
Sunday in the Lake Bienne, was a small boat, quite
new, and built expressly for the use of private parties
desirous of making excursions on the lake. As to
her dimensions, nothing is stated further than that
when seventeen or eighteen passengers were on board
she was rather crowded. On Sunday a number of
gentlemen living at Bienne—all in good positions,
one being a bank manager, another a sculptor,
another a schoolmaster—hired the yacht for a trip
on the lake, and with the intention of passing to
the Lake of Neuchatel. When they left Bienne on
Sunday morning there were eighteen people on board.
Eight of the men had their wives with them, and M.
Ziegerli, a music master, was accompanied by his
daughter and a brother-in-law. They had no boatman.
M. Affoltey, an iron-founder and machinist, acted as
engineer, while M. Ziegerli, who was a good amateur
sailor, took the helm and piloted the yacht. The
morning was fine, and they spent a very pleasant day,
called at Auvernier on the lake of Neuchatel and other
places, and about seven o'clock in the evening landed
at St. Peter's Island. Half an hour later they left the
island for Bienne, but they had not gone far when the
sky became overcast, mutterings of thunder were heard,
and there wa,s every sign of an approaching tempest.
The ladies, growing alarmed, besought M. Ziegerli to
make for the nearest land instead of continuing the
journey to Bienne. He changed the course of the boat
accordingly for Tuscherz, a picturesque village between
Bienne and Douanne. 11Ieanwhile rain had begun to
fall and all the ladies and half the gentlemen went
into the cabin, leaving on deck the amateur engineer
and steersman, and two other gentlemen, MM. Engel
and Tschantre. The waves at this time were dan-
gerously high, and whether it was that M. Ziegerli
let the yacht broach to, or she was pooped, or,
as some say, struck by lightning, she went down
like a stone within 500 yards of Tuscherz, and all
on board, save Engel and Tschantre, sank with
her. So sudden was the catastrophe that the un-
fortunate people in the cabin had not time to gain
the deck. MM. Engel and Tschantre owe their
escape to the snapping of a rope that held a small
boat, which, as it floated past bottom upwards, they
contrived to seize and hold on to until they were
rescued by the boatmen of Tuscherz, who had seen
the Neptune go down. The lake is very deep at this
part—upwards of 200 feet—and only one body has as
yet been recovered, that of M. Ziegerli. The calamity
has caused a most painful impression, not alone at
Bienne but throughout Switzerland. Forty children,
it is said, have been deprived of one os both their
parents.

Under date August 2, the Geneva Correspondent of The
Times writes :---

The body of one excursionist only of the 16 drowned
on Sunday week in the Lake of Bienne has been re-
covered. As 15 of them were shut up in the cabin, the
the boat will have to be raised before the bodies can
be recovered, which, seeing that the Lake is 300 ft. deep
where she sank, will be a difficult, if not an impossible
task. According to the account of one of the survivors,
the disaster was caused by the meeting of the bite and
the foehn, the north and south winds, a phenomenon
not uncommon on S'wiss lakes at this time of the year.