ROUGH TRIP FROM SYDNEY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 75, 31 March 1910, Page 3

ROUGH TRIP FROM SYDNEY.

WARRIMOO IN THE GALE. "I have never seen it blow so hard on the New Zealand coa*t before," remarked Captain Clift. mitl officers of the Warrimoo, on ai rival this morning from Sydney, about t.Vrnty hour's late. The steamer had cleared Port Jackson Hoids at 2.30 p.m. on Saturday last, and, immediately ran into a fresn easterly wind. On Sunday and Monday the blow increased, with the result that the Warrimoo was soon contesting every mile of her way against head seas and winds. Shortly before dawn on Tuesday, when tho steamer was still about 200 miles from Cook Strait, the wind increased to a* gale from the south-cast, which developed in violence a«t the veeeel struggled un. Instead of covering fourteen or fifteen knot» at' hour, her urual speed, the ship was held back to little more than seven knots. The woist effects of the gale were encountered in Cook Strait yesterday. A fairly high *ea was running, and the Warrimoo'n decks were almost constantly swept by ftprav. Captain Clift signalled Stephen's Island at 3.30 p.m. yesterday, although no message was received in town to that effect. The weather, however, was very thick with the driving rain and miH, and so vicious was the gale that it was deemed advisable to put back under the lee of D'Urville Island for a time. After a couple of hours' wait the Warrimoo came on again, the sea bei'ig what sailors call "feather-white," the crests of the waves being ripped away and sent flying before the gale. After a hard struggle throngh Cook Strait the steamer came to an anchorage in the harbour about 4.30 this morning without further incident, the trip having been on the whole unpleasant to the majority of passengers. After clearance by the Port Health Officer, the Warrimoo was berthed at tho Queen's Wharf before 9 a.m.