ROUGH WEATHER AT SEA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 60, 8 September 1909, Page 8

ROUGH WEATHER AT SEA.

Travellers from Sydney by the Manuka to-day got an unfavourable impression of weather on the New Zealand coast this morning. The ship ran into the southerly at a very early hour, and •she had td contend against the gale and heavy head seas all through the strait. A quantity of water broke on board and her decks were constantly swept with spray. The Manuka is a staunch seaboat, however, and came through in first-class condition. She was delayed about three hours by the gale. A message from Lyfctelton advises that the Monowai reached there from Wellington at 8.15 a.m., but according to a later Press Association message the Pateena did not fare so well. It was noon before she got to Lyttelton. A heavy southerly gale prevailed during the night, and the Pateena encountered the full force of it about midnight. For the rest of the way she was battling in the teeth of the elements and 'a heavy head sea. The vessel herself suffered no damage. Passengers by the turbine steamship Maori, which, arrived this morning from Lyttelton, did not have a very pleasant voyage, so far as weather conditions affected the enjoyableness or otherwise of the trip. Captain Hunter reported that soon after the steamer cleared the Lyttelton Heads she ran into a big gathering swell, and a strong wind sprung up from the South. The Utter increased in force during the night, and as the ship approached Cook Strait at dawn she was riding and see-sawing over huge rollers from the South. The Maori was hurried along by the. gale and the racing sea at her back, and she berthed at the Queen's Wharf in good time. By nine o'clock this morning the fierce gale had raised a rollicking sea in Cook Strait, and big breakers were pounding the coast from Palliser to Terawhiti. The Monowai, which left here last night for Lyttelton, was passed by the Maori a considerable distance from Wellington, so it is thought that she and the Pateena would have escaped the worst effects of the gale.