DERELICTS IN THE ATLANTIC.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 November 1924, Page 13

DERELICTS IN THE ATLANTIC.

ABANDONED SCHOONER’S 2700MILE DRIFT. The Atlantic navigator nas constantly to Ue on ms guaru against vUe perns peculiar to tlie restless ocean,' anu alter iog, snow, and ice, not tlie least potent source ol danger to snipping is tne floating uereiict. It nas oeen estimated tflat tflere are twenty derelicts m tne iNortn • Atlantic at any given moment, eacfl ox tflem living on an average thirty days, and the iact that collisions witn s«cn insiaious oejects are so few and far between is atrioute to tne emciency of tne vvaten kept on ooard the large liners, the annuls 01 trans-Atlantic navigation contain many notaple instances ox abandoned vessels which have kept afloat for months and even years (states the London Observer), and to them must be added the Nova Scotian schooner Governor Parr, which was reported the other day off the Portuguese coast. She left Ingramport (N.S.) on September 25 last year with a. cargo of timber for Buenos Ayres, but a few days later she was dismasted in a violent gale and was abandoned on October 3. From that time nothing was heard of her until the ElderDempster liner Zaria encountered her in mid-Atlantic, right in the track of shipping. A party was sent off to her and she was set on fire in the hope that this would put an end to her. On July 29, however, a liner homeward bound from the River Plate passed close to her between the Azores and Portugal, while since then she has been seen again, apparently capable of remaining afloat for an indefinite period unless steps are taken to locate and sink her.

The derelict menace has engaged the attention of both the British and American Governments, but whereas two committees have sat in this country to consider the matter and nothing has been done-, the United States Gbvernment commissioned many years ago a vessel for the special purpose of searching for and destroying those menaces to the safety of life and . property at sea. The record for longevity is probably held by a 1 derelict which drifted about in the North lantic for thirty-one months, while another remarkable case was that of the American schooner W. L. White, which, abandoned in March, 1888, off the United States coast, was piled up on one of the Hebridean, islands in “January. 1889, having covered in that time a distance of 6000 miles.

It has been found that ships abandoned along the Atlantic seaboard of the United States are carried south by the Labrador current for some distance, until, getting into the Gulf Stream, they proceed on a northeasterly course. Near the Azores the sea surface current opens out fanwise, and should a ship get into the southern portion, as the Governor Parr evidently did, ~she may be months covering a few hundred miles. Once well into the northern stream, . however, she will probably fetch up somewhere on the north coast of Scotland.

Probably now that the whereabouts of the Governor Parr have been so closely defined, steps will be taken to bring her career to an end. How great is the derejict’s capacity for mischief was shown in the spring of 1900 when the Allan liner lonian struck one and limped into port with a gash 40 feel long in her side.