STORMY SEAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 297, 16 December 1935, Page 11

STORMY SEAS.

RECORDER'S VOYAGE.

CABLE STEAMER BUFFETED.

SEVERAL MEN INJURED.

Three members of the crew of the cable steamer Recorder were injured during the rough weather which the vessel encountered on the voyage from which she returned to Auckland on Saturday afternoon. Owing partly to stormy weather in the Tasman and partly also to the fact that the seabed had apparently been altered by a submarine disturbance, the Recorder was unable to complete' the task she was sent.out to do, the repair of No. 2 cable between New Zealand and Australia, but she will probably make another attempt when she. sails about December 27 for Sydney on her way to Singapore, to replace the steamer Cable, wrecked recently in. the East Indies.

Heavy weather was encountered as soon as the Recorder, which sailed from Auckland on October 22, was clear of the coast. On the third day' out, when the vessel was rolling and pitching violently, the baker, Mr. J. Appleton, was." thrown by a lurch of the ship into an open through which he fell too a coal bunker, breaking two ribs. He was able, however, to continue working.: The next casualty was Mr. F. A. Neale, storekeeper, who was ■taken seriously ill with an internal complaint that was diagnosed aboard the •hip as appendicitis. At this time the Recorder was trying to locate by means o£ grapnels the damaged cable, which, at the place where the fault was believed to be, lies 2700 fathoms, or over three jand miles, deep. The work was continually hampered by rough weather, which kept her decks awash,- and-the. grapnel, towed at the end of four miles Of land line, brought up nothing but volcanic rock, which seemed to indicate that a submarine disturbance had destroyed a considerable length of the cable.

Dragging was temporarily abandoned and- the Recorder made full speed to ojuney, to land Mr. Appleton. Sho arrived at Sydney on October 31 and the sick man was taken to hospital, where Was discovered that, although the first ■agnosis was not correct, he was in a Beri °us condition.

Danger on Deck. Returning to the supposed site of the - t , ', the Recorder continued to drag W the cable, though the sea was so Pugh that a roll of 37 degrees was worded. The watch below were often .urqwn out of the bunks, and water Penetrated even to the engine room and nkers. Those who had to work on eck were in constant danger of being ished overboard, and those whose 11 1 Was b c ' ow never onmo mess they had to. The cook was nearly 8 overboard when a heavy sea swept t er ship as he was sitting on a ir.s ® u tside the galley peeling potatoes. »# , s Pyds" and the box on which he <fnn ting' went over the stern to Davy fcSH, "t' ,e doctor" managed to save Ida? oatc ' lin g h°'d of the galley Thrown against the refrigerating whieli lie was oiling, one of the B* as ers, Mr. D. King, had several of his right hand mangled, igggpging. was continued under thesis ■EjyjJons until the vessel needed more ■BgPT which she went to Newcastle,

arriving there on November,. 13. The injured greaser was landed and with her bunkers replenished the Recorder sailed the following day for Melbourne, where she wa? to transfer to the cable steamer Faraday 240 miles of cfitble to be laid across Bass Street, between Tasmania and Australia. Again the | Recorder .encountered rough weather, a gale springing up in the vicinity of Gabo' Island on November 16 that continued until she reached Melbourne three days later. During the height of this storm, which was even fiercer than that which had. been encountered in the Tasman, the mesgroom steward, Mr. R. Corden, was washed along the deck by a heavy sea and received injuries to his back that for two days paralysed him from the waist down. * Visit to Melbourne. , After so many delays, the Recorder was able to transfer to the Faraday only 80 miles of the 240 miles of cable _ she had taken from Auckland and received in return 30 miles of cable of a new type that the, Faraday had brought from England. Bound once more for the Tasman, the Recorder left Melbourne on December 4. ' . Better weather offered some hopes-that ; the cable would this time be located and repaired, but the day that the vessel arrived at the scene of her previous operations and just as soon as.preparations had -been made to recommence dragging, instructions were received by wireless for hento repair the other trans-Tasman cable, the New Zealand end of which comes ashore at Muriwai Beach.

Full speed was made to a spot about 200 miles off the New Zealand coast, the vessel arriving there last Wednesday. The weather being fine and the sea calm, no difficulty was experienced in picking up the cable which was found to have been chafed through by rubbing on the rocks of the sea bed. The cable was 'hauled aboard, a new piece spliced in and the cable relaid in 30 hours, and the vessel left there for Auckland at noon on Thursday. Transfer to Singapore. Although her future movements have not yet been announced it is expected that the vessel will sail' again about December 27 for Sydney, where a crew of Malays will be waiting to replace her European crew. After signing on the Malay crew, she will probably make another attempt to locate and repair the No. 2 Tasman cable, which she wac unable to find on her last voyage, and then gd to Singapore, the steamer Cable, previously stationed tlierc, "having been wrecked a short time ago on an uncharged reef of Cape St. James on the coast of Cochin, China. Whether the transfer will be permanent or only temporary, until another cable steamer is available for the Singapore is riot yet known, but it is likely that the Recorder will go for good, such a possibility having been "in the air" ever since Imperial Communications, Ltd., took over control of the cable services from the British Government a few years ago and changed the vessel's name from Iris to Recorder.