From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Newspaper clipping detailing the investigation into the sinking of the Miss England speedboat after a fatal incident.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 174\5\ img078 | |
| Date | 12th July 1930 guessed | |
| Twenty minutes after the incident which led to the deaths of two men, a Windermere engineer returning by launch from the scene to Bowness recovered from the lake the water-logged branch of a tree. Only two tiny 'knobs' showed on the lake surface. Could a trifle of driftwood weighing 'at a conservative calculation' about 5 lbs. lead to the sinking of a magnificent speed boat weighing at least five tons? Experts who have examined Miss England since she was refloated found that there was no other fault discoverable save that to the step on the hull. 'It is correct' said one witness who had inspected the boat and engines 'to say that apart from the broken step, the minor damage caused by the salvage operations, and the results of the immersion of the engines, Miss England was in a condition to run again as soon as she was raised to the surface.' Mr. Cooper, the naval architect and the designer of two Miss Englands, stated that taking into account the speed—put at one hundred miles an hour—of Miss England, the weights of the boat and the piece of driftwood, the blow sustained in head-on collision between those two bodies would be equivalent to two tons to the square inch. This witness considered that a water-logged object well below the surface might have been brought to the top as a result of the disturbance created in the water by the two previous runs over the course. Witnesses agreed that a submerged or partly submerged obstacle such as that piece of driftwood was sufficient to cause the only damage to be found. Thus does an accident cut short the careers of two men of rare skill, each gifted in a particular direction, and both inspired at once by the desire for research and the spirit of adventure which in certain spheres is essential to success. In their case it is not likely to be forgotten that before a mischance befell they achieved their object. | ||