SHIPS AND THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 6

SHIPS AND THE SEA

(By "Helmsman.")

Once a famous and stately clipper in thfe Australian trade and now a coal (hulk at Fremantle, Western Australia, the Samuel Plimsoll may fairly attribute the cause of her downfall to the boisterous weather conditions of the

New Zealand coast. And yet, shorn as she was of -her colour and dignity at the comparatively early age of 29 years, she had good luck mixed with the bad, for her fate might easily have been worse. To be driven nearly seven hundred miles, dismasted, before a howling gale and yet live is, indeed, something of a feat. The Samuel Plimsoll was . built in 1873 and put in the Australian trade, running to Sydney and Melbourne. She made some very good runs and her first passage to Sydney took only 68 days. Among other good runs from Plymouth to Sydney were the following:—lß74. 74 days; 1876, 78 days; 1877, 79 days; 1880, 72 days. She made several other voyages to Sydney and Melbourne in from 73 to 78 days.

I In 1883 she averaged, on a passage to Sydney, 328 miles on thirteen consecutive days, and during one period of 24 hours covered 348 miles. So she was not slow.

When the Samuel Plimsoll was lying at anchor in the River Thames one day in 1899 a fire broke out and she had to be scuttled. This'method of stopping a blaze, if a little inconvenient, was at least effective and, if not a common "practice, was used on. quite a few ships in the days of sail. She was raised again and bought by. the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Company, who ran her to New Zealand.

On June 18, 1902, she left Glasgow for Dunedin and Auckland on what proved, to be, her last voyage as a trader. ' All went well until after she passed Nugget Point light (at the mouth of the Clutha River) on September 17. She then encountered a severe south-

SAMUEL PLJMSOLL-CLIPPER

NOW A HULK IN AUSTRALIA

westerly gale which lasted for several days. When she was off Cape Saunders a heavy squall struck her and the lower main topsail was carried away. Then the maincap broke arid, with a terrible crash, the mizzen and main masts went over the side in a cloud

of spume and tangled rigging. Singularly enough no one was hurt in the exciting time the crew experienced before they cut the wreckage clear. In their fall the masts smashed the ship's four boats, which were lashed on the boat-booms amidships, and carried away a great length of bulwarks. .

The gale was blowing with ' tremendous force, there was a mountainous sea running, and every moment the crew expected the ship to founder. She had been, rolling so violently that something had- to give, and no one was very much surprised when • the main snd.mizzen went overboard.

— Over the side the great, heavy masts, and yards were banging the ship with ponderous thumps, and it seemed that at any minute she would be stove in.' The excitement was intense as the men worked feverishly to cut away the huge "sticks," with the ship rolling and plunging and the decks awash. At great danger they eventually managed to get the wreckage clear, but the vessel, though eased somewhat, was quite unmanageable. All efforts to make her heave-to /were hopeless. She simply lay in the trough of the seas and wallowed.

Driven by the fury of the storm as far north as Qable End Foreland, north of Gisborne, she was there lucky enough to be picked up by the Union Company's Omapere and ,was towed into Gisborne Roads for shelter. From there she was taken in hand by the Union Company's Hawea, and after a stormy passage reached Port Chalmers. When she had discharged^ her cargo she was towed to Sydney and sold to a Western Australian firm for use as a hulk.