ITALIAN SKIPPER'S FINE SEAMANSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 10

ITALIAN SKIPPER'S FINE SEAMANSHIP.

. FLYERS RESCUED. Windjammer Manoeuvred In Mountainous Seas. PASSENGER'S TRIBUTE. British Official Wireless. (Received 9.30 a.m.) RUGBY, January 20. Tributes of gratitude and apprecia- , tion of skill in seamanship is paid to Captain Romano, master of the Italian sailing ship Giuseppe Padre, a small wooden brigantine, by a passenger in an Imperial Airways' liner, which made a forced descent into the sea on December 21. The captain of the aircraft, realising that he was in <liflic iltv, circled round the ship several time? and fired Ycrey lights, finally coming down about 200 yards in front of the sailer. A high wind was blowing at the time and mountainous seas swept the passengers and crew into the sea from the wings of the aircraft, where they luul climbed after the machine had come down. The Giuseppe Padre, which appeared rather an unwieldy ship and was incapable of sailing near the wind, hod made considerable leeway, but Captain Romano, by a series of short tacks, brought her'near the scene of the disaster. "I realised that the Giuseppe Padre had achieved the almost impossible and that the: next tack would bring her within hailing distance," said the aitliner passenger. '"The difliculties of manoeuvring the ship under .the prevailing conditions were overcome and six persons were pickcd up from the sea. "No man could have done more/' the passenger added, "and the wonder is not that five were lost, but that six were j saved."