Women And Children Last

the long version

"Each year hundreds of ships were lost on rock-bound coasts or in the deep oceans. But of all the ways a ship might meet her end, destruction by fire was perhaps the most feared. The New Zealand-bound emigrant ship Cospatrick was lost in the worst shipboard fire of the era. Nearly 500 people died when this elderly sailing vessel burned and sank in the South Atlantic in 1874 and few, very few, survived. There was a desperate battle to quench the flames, a huge death toll as the vessel was being abandoned, and acts of cannibalism in the one lifeboat that remained afloat." "This book is based on research carried out in Britain, New Zealand and Australia. While it relates the story of the Cospatrick fire and its survivors, it also discusses the general problem of safety at sea."--BOOK JACKET.