Sinking of the Princess Victoria
Sixty years ago this month the lives of 133 people were lost when the car ferry Princess Victoria sank in a ferocious gale off the Co Down coast on January 31, 1953. Not one woman or child on board survived, and it is regarded as ‘a generation’s Titanic’ but very little is known about the tragedy outside Northern Ireland and Scotland. The roll-on roll-off ferry went down with only 44 survivors all men out of 177 people who set out that stormy morning on the short crossing from Scotland, writes Seán Andrews.
Early in the morning of Saturday the 31st of January 1953, the car ferry Princess Victoria set sail from the port of Stranraer at the southern end of Lough Ryan on the Scottish coast. She was scheduled to make the short trip across the North Channel to Larne.