LINER IN TERRIFIC GALE

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 95, 16 January 1926, Page 20

LINER IN TERRIFIC GALE

How the six hundred and sixty-six passengers of the great Cuuard liner Berengaria had an experience (luring a voyage home from New York winch they will not soon forget is reported iu the ‘•Morning Post.” The liner encountered what is described as the worst storm which has occurred for many years. Some 2G of the passengers received injuries, most of them minor, owing to the violence of the storm. Some of the passengers gave a graphic account of the ship's battle with what they described as “mountainous seas” for two days ami nights. . , , , , One passenger, Dr. E. Johnson, nail one arm broken, and received other injuries through being flung down a stairway by a roll of Hie ship, when the storm was lit its height. “It was one of the worst gales 1 ever saw,” he said, "but the ship was magnificently handled by the captain and stuff. The waves were between BOft. and lOl't. high at Hie worst.” The ship s furniture and crockery also suffered damage. Chairs and tables, in tact, everything loose, were hurled from side to side of Hie rooms as Hie liner rolled, and every few minutes there was a report as n fresh "stack ’ ol crockery broke loose and fell to the floor, where it was smashed to fragments. The total damage. 1 was informed by an official, was in the region of £2OOO. A story of a remarkable escape from injury, if not from death, by a fortuitous circumstance, was told by Mr A. Ik. Owrn Jones, who was returning home from Chicago. It occurred at the time when terrific seas were crashing against the sides of the Berengaria. He had just moved his bed in Lis stateroom from under a big electric fan weighing 1001 b. during Hie height of the storm, when the ship was rolling in an alarming fashion. Suddenly the fan crashed to the floor where tiie bed had previously stood. Mr Jones also saw the thick glass in the port hole smashed to atoms by a wave, and said lie was knocked off his feet by. the rolling trunli in his room.