OVERDUE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 298, 10 September 1908, Page 7

OVERDUE.

THE STEAMER AEON. ' (BY 'IELEGEAPB—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) London, September 8. The steamer Aorangi, which has arrived from American ports, kept a look-out for the ( overdue steamer Aeon. She cruised round one of the, islands, but found no trace of the ; Aeon; j THE AEON AS A SEA-BOAT. The steel screw steamer Aeon, 2758 tons net, ; built at Newoastle in 1905, and owned by Messrs. Howard Smith and Co., ot Melbourne, left San Francisco on July 5 or G, for Apia and Auckland, and under ordinary conditions should have reached Auckland o.iter i a -8 days passage—i.e., on August 2or 3. She is therefore over a month overdue at Auckland, Her cargo was a' million feet of Oregon pine consigned to two Napier.flrmslf. »,.« i . • A former A.B. on the Aeon has. supplied, the "Otago Daily Times" ajthiysome. details, of her, including the following:—She is a typical' modern tramp, he said, and very slow, as may be gathered from the fact that while she weighs 2758 'tons the Rapacity of' her .engines is only 372 horse-power. She commenced lier career by making a couple of ■ voyages' on the Australian coast. Later oil she went out to Japan and made three voyages to Hong-Kong with Cargoes of coal, but returned again to the Australian coastal trade. The " Times" informant well remembers being caught in a typhoon on the. Aeon as she was going from Newcastle to Hong : Kong. As the gale rose the captain attempted to turn her head to the sea, but he found ho had left it too long, and they were forced to run before the storm. She made : very bad weather of it, and for three days their condition was-extremely dangerous. On being questioned as to his theory of tho Aeon's probable fate, he recalled the significant fact that.the Aeon's bulwarks are very low just in front of the bridge, so that in rough weather the seas would frequently sweep over and wash away the wedges from the hatches. Sometimes for days there would be two or three sailors going round with mauls constantly knocking the wedges in. If once the hatches got open in such circumstances nothing could save the vessel from foundering, and that, he thought, was quite possibly what had happened. At the same time, ho was not going to make any definite prophecies, and there was still a good chance of hor being found. On hor present voyage she was loaded with timber from San Francisco, and would probably be fairly light in the water. He had a very poor .opinion of her sea-going qualities, and said she lay like a log in the water or a rock at half-tide. She was very flat underneath, and ' in heavy weather her bows would keep coming out of the'water and striking it again with a crash. Her full complement of men when he served on her was 2G. The Aeon is under the command of Captain Downie, a Nova Scotian, of whom the "Times" informant spoke enthusiastically -as 'the best captain ho had ever served. Captain Downie is well known in Sydney, and retains the confidence of his employers, who have, every hopo that ho will bring the vessel through tho present trouble successfully. It is .stated that tho Aeon was. well stocked with provisions.