 In desperate conditions the crew of the "Wildflower" struggled to pull the 20 survivors from the lifeboat, which had begun to break up.The skipper, William Wright, said later that the survivors would not have lasted another hour in those conditions, and believed that the only reason they had stayed alive for five hours was the expertise of the "Elbe"'s crewmen aboard the lifeboat.The "Crathie" was a steamer of about 475 tons gross and 272 net.