Tragedy on the Thames: 30 years on, remembering the Marchioness disaster

On 20 August 1989, a packed pleasure boat was rammed and sunk by a dredger. For the survivors and grieving families of the 51 victims, the horror and injustice was only just beginning, writes Godfrey Holmes

Thursday 15 August 2019 17:41 BST
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The pleasure cruiser is raised from the river, where it sank after a collision with the dredger ‘Bowbelle’
The pleasure cruiser is raised from the river, where it sank after a collision with the dredger ‘Bowbelle’

And the dancing stopped. At precisely 1.46am on a clear, hot, still summer night, the dancing stopped. Thirty-one, at most 41, seconds later, very many revellers and their skipper were dead, drowned in the muddy, oily waters of London’s River Thames. Twenty-four celebrants of what was meant to be a very happy 26th birthday entombed, torpedoed, before they even had a slim terrifyingly slim chance of survival.

And shouldn’t it all have been different on such a romantic, moonlit voyage? Only a day earlier, and in good faith, Jon Phang had reserved the Marchioness for the birthday party for his friend, merchant banker Antonio de Vasconcellos. Portuguese in origin, both men had studied economics at Cambridge and remained the best of friends. The eight who knew Antonio best shared dinner in Jon’s flat before mid-evening on Saturday 19 August 1989. They would later be joined by 30 of Jon’s associates and colleagues for champagne and birthday cake. Then everyone, and quite a few more, would excitedly leave Soho for the Victoria Embankment, embarkation point for Tidal Cruises’ floating discos.

A few Marchioness merrymakers might have been “luckier” had they not thought too quickly to make a rational choice and trusted themselves to the treacherous currents swirling around and beneath the vessel that had been their aggressor, their undoing.

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