DAYS OF TERROR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 32, 8 February 1939, Page 16

DAYS OF TERROR.

ABOARD FREIGHTER. PACIFIC HURRICANE. HUGE SEAS BATTERED SHIP. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNKV. February 2. Six days of terror in one of the. worst Pacific hiirrioilice on record were experienced by the crew nf the timber freighter Jersey, which reached Sydney thin week from Vancouver. The hurricane started on New Year's Day, and on January 2 the wind reached a velocity of over 10(1 mi lew per hour ae huge seas battered the ship. For «even days the Jernev just had steerage way and only made 700 mi leu. The luckiest man on board was the cook, William Winstone, who was washed out of the jrallrry by n hujre fen and vencued on the top of the boat deck.

"I thought it was the end of the world," he said. "A wall of water burst down the door and swept me 20 feet through the galley and out the other side. I finirOiPrl lip nn the bout dock, badly dazed, nnd grabbed a mil just iim another wave washed away a lifehoiit."

At Uk> hri.irht of the hurricane" fury throo men wee marooned lift for \'i hours. Two others, who were securing the deck enrjfo of lojjn, which lnid broken adrift nn<l wiw threiitoning to wiimimli everything on deck, sprang up the must: just in time ha lops on which ♦ hoy were working were swept overboard by another huge wave. Water wns M't. hljrh in the mtinnn. cabins nnd alleyways, and all hands worked for many lioiirn with buckets nnd tins hailing out. For two days the «pn was «o rough that it wn« impossible for the cook to prepare cither hot. food or drinks.

Tn addition to losing a good part of her deck cargo of log». the Jersey lost two lifeboats, two derrick*, door**, deck railing nnd had «ix winches damaged. For , three week* after the storm the crew were constantly repairing the damage and cleaning up Uie ship, tint she still looked very nattered when she came into Sydney Harbour. Captain Williams said the «ea«* were the worst he had ever seen.