CHASING A HOODOO.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 307, 28 December 1929, Page 8

CHASING A HOODOO.

THE MAIJI POMARE'S CAT. HER FUTURE SUCCESS ASSURED. (By LEE FORE BRACE.) The tradition of the sea from time immemorial will tell you .that a ship's complement is not complete unless she has a cat aboard. Sooner or later the omission will cause her to meet with no end of trouble, and if the matter is not attended to a "hoodoo" will eventually take possession of her. Ask a landsman what a hoodoo ship is, and he will look at you in blank astonishment, but if the same question were put to a sailorman he would probably close one eye, look wise, and then with a furtive glance over his left shoulder he would whisper in your ear, "a blinkin' hooker that's haunted." Since being in these waters the New Zealand Government motor vessel, Maui Pomare, has had a continual run of illluck. To sailors she has earned the reputation of being a hoodoo ship. During the first year of her career every voyage she made was a failure from a cargo-carrying point of view. On one occasion, when lying at the Auckland wharf, a serious epidemic of sickness broke out among her native crew, causing a Dominion-wide sensation. At a later date, when on one of her periodical visits to Samoa, she narrowly escaped destruction in a hurricane, only the excellent seamanship displayed by her commander and officers saving her from the insatiable maw of the Apia reefs. The Maui Pomare is now entering upon her third year of service, and it has been left to the members of the Auckland Ancient Mariners' League to discover the cause of her continual run of ill-luck. They have found that she has never had a cat in her complement, and to rectify matters the league members have repaired the omission. On Christmas Eve (be it noted that this is the day known to sailormen when krakens, hoodoos and other evil spirits are in hiding), a number of venerable patriarchs of the league-men who sailed the seven seas -when it was hell or Melbourne in sixty days, met Captain W.* H. Macdonakl, commander of the Maui Pomare, and presented him with a cat specially to upset the knavish tricks of his ship's hoodco.

It is 110 ordinary or common garden wall specimen of tlie feline race that is now duly entered in the Maui Poinare's complement, but one of very ancient lineage. His pedigree goes back to the first of. his long line that left the native shores of Omar Khayyam. He is a gigantic golden Persian, a noted prizewinner at several New Zealand shows, and it will be a bold hoodoo who might, in the future, cross the decks 'of the Maui Pomare. ' . He has yet to be named. The custom of the sea tells us that everyone on a ship's complement must have a name, so that they can draw rations. Various suggestions have been made to Captain Macdonald. For instance his third officer suggests that the cat should be named "George" because it was one of that name who slew the dragon. The chief engineer of the Maui Pomare' is a Belfast man, and being well read in the history of Ireland, is certain that "St. Patrick" is a fitting name to bestow on the cat, because St. Patrick was the one who chased the banshee, snakes and other evil spirits out of Ireland, and as the vessel is an Irish-built ship, • 110 other name could be possibly chosen. However, 1 Captain Macdonald is not going to hurry the christening ceremony, it is too important a matter to be hurried. In the meantime the hoodoo-chaser has taken up his quarters on the softest cushion in the saloon £rom where he surveys the passing commonalty in a truly regal manner. He has already made a critical inspection of the ship, and some of his shipmates. And when the interesting ceremony of the presentation of the cat was concluded, the visitors became reminiscent, as master mariners are wont to do wlven they foregather. The talk was about the hoodoo ships in the old windjammer fleet that sailed the seas thirty and forty years ago. The unlucky P,j igrave, she of tbc many dismasting.*, -wa mentioned. The story was told of M>e ill-famed Star of Russia, and how she drowned half her crew each voyage. The hair-raising adventures of the snip Wanderer, perhapp the most ill-fated vessel that ever sailed under the rid Red Duster,' proved that truth is stranger than fiction, and Captain Macdonald told his visitors about his old ship, the Glenmark of Dundee. "When I was a boy I served part ot my apprenticeship in the Glenmark. She was well known up and down the seven seas as a hoodoo ship, but when I w-is in her nothing out of the oriinary happened, that is, until the cat •> :Js washed overboard, and then the fun commenced. We were homeward bound from Tal-Tal, on the west coast of 'South America/to Hamburg. A few days after

losing the cat we were thrown on our beam ends with a shifted cargo. All sad that was set was blown to ribbons, .ani a few spars went by the board. ,4" hands were kept hard at it for over a week, night and day, to save the barque and get her ship-sliape again. The ' res of the voyage was a succession w winds and calms. 011 one occasion I aloft with another apprentice matoß* t'gal'n sail fast. The two-of us g^l" e bunt picked, up, and then went, out ui the yard to pick the clews up. It**, blowing hard, and I had allleouW to muzzle the sail. At last I fin! my side, and looking over to I could see 110 signs of my mate. li6i . was not properly stowed, that he had hurried the job and gont" deck I went over and restowed tie Reaching the deck the mate met me asked: ; "How did it happen?" y "What do vou mean?" I replied.» "Nelson fell from aloft a few minum ago," answered the mate. ' _ They had carried the lad into jj saloon and laid him on the ta e, when I got there the poor chap dead. His back was broken. A fewjj . later we were working at the raa very heavy sea. Three men washed overboard. One of iem , to a brace that was hanging oversicumanaged to reach the deck again- -i" too rough to launch a lifeboat, ai>.d could do was to watch our n'» before our eyes. Later on i" e . • the cargo shifted again. Qettnig English Channel, only just in tni-, : our water and stores were almost „ we were nearly run down by a 0 > ne steamer. How she missed us - could tell. To finish up' ol !| din cr• cut voyage we were four dajs o a northerly blizzard, nearly al being frost-bitten. t, "The complete story of the would till a book. That's a p 0 o . of her. her good looks belie hei 'H; . tion. Xo one would make two j! £$6 in her. On every passage she tot j. or three victims, and no one ° '.. aS her passing when she was sold _ "Aye, sailonnen are superstiti * thev do believe in hoodoos it sno j fault. A sailor's life is a lone y■ since the dawn of time thev 0 { continuously up against the mp the dee)) waters. Perhaps tm ... they arc more superstitious t ' men. There are certain beliefs, and superstitions connected which have been handed do»n. ■ father to son. They will be obs • long as one English ship s-u s waters, and when they go so wil 1. romance of the sea.' •