ANOTHER HISTORIC HULK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 59, 11 March 1939, Page 24

ANOTHER HISTORIC HULK

(By "He!

Another of the former well-known sailing ships which are concluding their colourful careers as unimposing hulks in Wellington Harbour is the Adderley. Less than 24 years ago she was on active service in the commercial world, flying before a ten-knot gale or becalmed while the skipper and the crew whistled for a breeze. Like her colleagues, some of which have already been reviewed in these columns, the Adderley has had her share of trials and tribulations.

Shorn of all her beauty, with only the bare stumps of her poles remaining, she bears no resemblance to the spick and span sailer she was even a lew years ago. Although she has not punched her way through the icefloes of the Arctic as the Prince of Wales did, she has cast her anchor in many, out-of-the-way corners far removed from the beaten track. For many a year she was a wanderer on the face of the waters. She carried coal or other cargo from port to port as the occasion demanded. Honolulu, Iquique, Hamburg, and dozens of other places were touched at by her during her days of active service. SPLENDID SPREAD OF SAIL. In her time the Adderley had a splendid spread of sail, for she was, as vessels went, of quite a respectable size. She was built of iron at Port Glasgow in 1888. Her tonnage was 1147, and her length was 225 ft, breadth 36ft, and depth 21ft. Some of her logs are still in existence, although the entries in them are a little faint with old age. A I list of desertions in the front of one of them commands attention. In. one year she lost her carpenter, six able-bodied seamen, an ordinary seaman, a cabin boy, an apprentice, end a sailmaker. It is interesting to trace the rate of the. vessel's voyaging. With a fresh breeze it frequently reached eight or nine knots. On rare occasions with a gale at her back the Adderley would be scampering along at the rate of twelve knots. Ninety-one days was the time occupied by the vessel on a run from Liverpool to Sydney in 1889. TERRIFIC HAILSTORM. While in Sydney harbour at the end of this trip the Adderley was struck by a terrific hailstorm. Hailstones of a most unusual size were raining down on the ship for over an hour. No damage was done on board but a hor§§ was killed on the wharf. After1 leaving Sydney at this time the Adderley set sail for Valparaiso, where she arrived after a pas.sage of fortyfive days, during which she experienced some hard squalls and heavy seas. Seas poured into the galley, stove in doors, and generally behaved most truculently. Leaving Valparaiso the Adderley proceeded along the South American coast to Chaveral Bay, where she discharged coal and loaded ninety tons of ballast and 480 tons of fresh water. After touching at Iquique and loading cargo (nitre) the Adderley set sail for Hamburg, which port she reached safely without untoward incident. UNDER BARE POLES. While on a later'voyage—in 1907— from Newcastle to Honolulu, the Adderley had an exciting experience. On that occasion the barometer fell alarmingly and all sails but the topsails and foresails were furled. Mountainous seas came up, the wind .blew all ways, and the air was thick with rain. The wind increased to a gale, and the upper topsails and the foresails were furled. The de.cks were flooded and the weather became dirtier.. At midnight the ship was dipping in an angry waste of waters. Next day the gale continued with unabated force and some heavy seas were shipped. Poop buckets, a hen-house, and wheel gratings were washed overboard. • Then not satisfied with the damage they had done the waves stove in both doors of the galley and forecastle and swept everything not made fast before them. After the storm came the calm and the only other sensational happening of that voyage was the capture of three large sharks by the sailors. MAL-DE-MER SUFFERINGS. Before leaving Honolulu for Vancouver the Adderley took a party of ten Japanese aboard, and a day or two out on the voyage these suffered from mal-de-mer. At this stage the ship.must have resembled a hospital ship, as, in addition to the Japanese being laid up, an ordinary seaman was all in bed. When the vessel reached there, there was a strong ebb tide. The vessel was "somewhere off the Race Rocks,", and that, was all the skipper knew. A foggy gale' blotted out all sign of land, and the foghorn on the rocks could be heard sounding its warning to those on the sea. A dead calm reigned, and matters looked very bad, but; however, in the early afternoon the fog lifted, a light west by south-west wind sprang up, and ;the vessel managed to crawl around towards Williams Head. She cast anchor off the quarantine station, and the doctor came aboard to inspect her crew. All the.Japs., with their clothing, were fumigated. Indeed, while at Vancouver troubles came thick and fast. The skipper fell sick, and had to go into hospital; two members of the crew were attacked with illness, and half a dozen AJB.s gathered up their belongings and disappeared into the night. A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT. . Lying' at Vancouver the Adderley loaded considerably over a million feet of timber, no easy performance considering that at this particular stage of her career she seems to have been a perfect hotbed of labour troubles. With her. cargo stowed snugly in her holds and on her decks the Adderley set sail for Sydney. On the voyage there was one bitter disappointment to everyone on board. A fat porker was killed for home consumption, and about the same time a heavy albacore (of the mackerel species), weighing 1501b, was caught. Truly, as the log states, those aboard were "well off, a fine pig, and this big fish." Visions of pork chops and fish and chips were ne\^er to be fulfilled, however, for two days later a pathetic entry is recorded in the log to the effect that both tasty morsels had to be thrown overboard because they were bad. By this time the roamings of the Adderley were nearing an end. She was soon to sail the seas no more. She was acquired by Messrs. J. A. Redpath and Sons and later by the Union Steam . Ship Company, and she is now used by that company as an oil hulk. Her days as a hulk date to 1910, and in this ignominous capacity will the once proud barque end her days. HULKS OF FORMER DAYS. The names of ships that have served or are serving as hulks in Wellington Harbour are mentioned in a letter received, from Mr. J. M. Smith, of Auckland, who states that he knew many of them in commission. "There was the Amokura (ex-H.M.S. Sparrow), jthe Helen Denny, the Ganymede, the

Imsman.")

CAREER OF. THE ADDERLEY

Adderley, the Lutterworth, the Dilpussund, the Prince of Wales, which was laid up in the stream for years as a store ship, still retaining her barquentine rig and funnel, in company with an old Union Company steamer, the Southern Cross, all of which were familiar to me," he writes. "Other hulk names that come readily to my mind are the Coromandel, the William Manson, the Jubilee, the Hannah Nicholson, the William and. Edward, the Enterprise, the C. Tobias, the Arawatta (steamer), the Gazelle, the Occident, and the Alameda. The last two named were practically brand-new ships and had short careers before being converted into hulks. The Occident, a French full-rigged ship, built about 1900, was gutted by fire when in the Islands, and was tewed to Wellington by one of the Union Company's ships." . . The Occident, which is the largest hulk at present in this port, is an old iron sailing vessel. In her old days she touched at many of the out-of-the-way places, but the fire which cut short her sailing career broke out as far as can be ascertained while she was at Fiji, and she was badly damaged. Her sides still tell how she was warped by heat. She arrived at Wellington, her last port of call for all time, in December 1901, and her "conversion" followed not long after.