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[[File:LIfeboat in Trevessa House.jpg|thumb|The Model of the No.4 Lifeboat of the Trevessa, on display in Trevessa House, Port Louis, Mauritius

]]  SS Trevessa 

The S/S Trevessa was a steel built armed merchantship originally built as S/S Imkenturn in 1911 by Flensburger Schiffsbau Gesellschaft of Flensburg, Germany for the DDG Hansa (Deutsche Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft Hansa), she was given up to Britain as war reparation in 1919. Following which she was bought by the Hain Steamship Company in 1920 when she was renamed SS Trevessa.

In 1923, during a passage heading towards Western Australia and carrying a cargo of zinc concentrates, the SS Trevessa sank on the 4th June 1923. The cargo of zinc concentrates absorbed sea water, forming a paste which made the bilge pumps inoperable and the ship sank within fifteen minutes. The captain, Cecil Foster and Second Mate Mr Hall took the remaining crew aboard two lifeboats and spent the next 26 days rowing, eventually landing on Rodrigues and Mauritius. Of the 44 crew, 34 survived this journey, and this story of survival become the biggest news story of the year.

With headlines of the story published all around the world, the survivors were brought home to the UK and Captain Foster become a celebrity. He was summoned for an audience with George V and received many gifts including the Lloyd’s Silver Medal for Saving Life at Sea, also awarded to his First Officer. In 1924 Foster wrote a book about the adventure, using the short notes he and the First Officer had managed to keep in such difficult conditions and it rapidly became a best seller.

The Sinking - 4th June 1923

During the night of the 3rd June 1923, the ship was hove-to in during strong seas. Water was heard entering the forward hold, the bilge pumps were turned on..however water continued pouring through the bulkhead and the ship quickly began tipping down and at 0100hrs Captain Foster ordered an SOS to be sent, he ordered the crew to abandon ship, using the two undamaged lifeboats. It was a dark night with a strong wind and heavy seas of 20-30ft, so far from easy to drop the boats and to get the crew and their lifebelts aboard in such little time. It was now that Foster’s experience and decision-making proved life saving. The traditional food to put into lifeboats for emergencies had always included quantities of tinned meat, but Foster had already been in a dangerous lifeboat situation during the first world war and had decided from this experience that salted meat was useless. He had previously trained the Chief Steward so that he and the other stewards immediately went aft, hauled boxes of biscuits and condensed milk up perpendicular ladders and struggled back with them on the tilting deck, through storm waves washing over them, to divide them between the two lifeboats. These already had stores of water, and some biscuits and some tobacco and cigarettes were quickly found to add to them. There was no time for a second trip. In the final minutes, Foster had got to the bridge, measured the distance to the nearest land on the chart, and then sent the chart and sextants to the boats, then following himself. With a huge effort the crew used oars to get clear of the sinking ship and watched the Trevessa disappear, head down, with her lights on. The lifeboat in Hove.

The No.1 lifeboat ended up in Hove, Sussex. It was kept on display outside the Lifeguard Station/RNVR at a site owned by the Admiralty on Hove Seafront and survived here until the Second World War when the RNVR site and the adjacent swimming pool were requisitioned to become a stone frigate known as HMS King Alfred.

Mauritius

Following the arrival of the lifeboat in Bel Ombre on the 30th June the authorities in Mauritius decided to commerate the voyage by holding a national holiday each year called 'Trevessa Day', it was subsequently renamed 'Seafarers Day'. The sailors hostel in Port Louis is called Trevessa House and contains much memorabilia of the voyage including maps, newspaper cuttings and a replica of the lifeboat.

In Bel Ombre, on the South Coast of Mauritius there is a monument dedicated to the passage and a plaque commemorating this 'odyssey of the sea'