Ramming speed

The screams could be heard for miles. Hundreds of frightened passengers and crew had heard the gut-wrenching screech of twisted metal as the two massive ships collided. The Royal Navy battleship HMS Anson was blameless in the chaos on 17 March 1891, having been at anchor in the Bay of Gibraltar. But as the passenger liner SS Utopia passed by – too close – it received the full power of the battleship’s protruding ram. The Utopia sank in 20 minutes, taking with her 562 souls. A news report of the time stated that ‘rescuers, blinded by the wind and rain, saw nothing but a confused, struggling mass of human beings entangled with wreckage’. The ram, in one form or another, has