NINETY DAYS OUT

Evening Star, Issue 20033, 26 November 1928, Page 9

NINETY DAYS OUT

CITY OF HEW YORK ARRIVES FINE WEATHER PASSAGE ENDED Ninety days out from New York, the City of New York arrived off Taiaroa Heads at 1 p.m. yesterday, and was towed by the tug Dunedin to Port Chalmers. This vessel is the sailing umt of the Byrd Antarctic Expedition. The other is the steamer Eleanor Boling. The City of New York dropped her new York pilot at 1 p.m. on August 25, and at 1 p.m. three months afterwards she picked up the pilot at the entrance of Otago Harbour. It had been three months of gentle breezes and line weather. Captain Frederick C. Melville, a sailing ship man, who commands the City of New York, told a ‘Star’ reporter that it had been too tine for making a passage. Except for a lively breeze which blew along in the vicinity of the Kcrmadccs there was practically no occasion to shorten sail.. Even in the locality whore the tail end of the big hurricane pounded the Eleanor Boling almost disastrously the City of New York' sailed through unscathedShe was a day ahead of the hurricane, arid while it was wreaking its vengeance elsewhere in death and disaster the City of New York was spank : ing along to a full-sail breeze. Luck, sailed with her, as the old sailormen used to say. She was equipped to battle with tempests, but so far on this her historic trip she has been caressed by fondling breezes. The old sealer in her forty-two years of seal chasing in the Arctic never before experienced such a long run of fine weather. Before she joined the Byrd expedition the City of New York was named the Samson. Her strength lies in, her power to resist all pressure. Approved hull design is supplemented by solid timber work. Her bottom is 4ft thick, her sides 3ft. It makes her too still for speedy sailing, but ice pressure merely lifts her to the surface of. the crunching floes. Safety is her long sni^.