SEA DERELICT DANGERS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 138, 7 December 1912, Page 16

SEA DERELICT DANGERS

COST OF WIRELESS WARNINGS. On 23rd October complaint was made to the members of the British Derelicts Committee that, since the Post Office had taken over the control of wireless telegraphy from the Marconi Company, captains who had sufficient public spirit to report floating wrecks, for the warning and safety of other vessels, were compelled to pay for the messages. Captain Matthias, commander of the White Star liner Laurentic, who represented the Liverpool Shipowners' Association and the Mercantile Marine Service Association, said wireless messages reporting a derelict to the shore of the United States were allowed to go free, but such a message to the British coast was charged for by the Post Office. "When Marconi had the service," he added, "we worked together, and each commander was allowed 100 words to do what he liked with ; but since the British Post Office took over the service all concessions have been withdrawn. This means, of course, that if we report a derelict to the English coast we now have to pay for it. In fact, I remember last year sending a wireless to Liveipool_ asking what the weather was like outside the river, and the answer came back that if I liked to pay for the message I could have the information.'' Captain Matthias added that although he was obliged to pay, he thought it was his duty to report 'all derelicts to the English coast. Derelict vessels are the seaman's greatest dread. So feared is the derelict that years ago over a thousand captains petitioned the British Government to co-operate with the United States in scouring the seas to find and destroy this menace to shipping. Nothing, however, was done beyond passing the Derelict Vessels (Report) Act, 1886, by which masters of British vessels are required to give notice to Lloyd's agents of _ derelicts. If the vessel is within 100 miles of the United Kingdom the Trinity House send out a vessel to destroy it, but beyond that distance no measures of destruction are taken. The wooden vessel is the most dangerous of derelicts, for she may drift about the seas for months. Among the Board of Trade records one- reads of the Fanny E. Wolstin, which was abandoned on 15th October, 1891, and travelled about 4000 miles before she was last seen in December, 1893. And there was the Williftm L. White, which was abandoned on 13th March, 1888, 80 miles from New York, and tossed about the North Atlantic for months, during which she was recognised by some 40 vessels. She at last went ashore off the Hebrides on 23rd January, 1889. j