LAD SAVES SHIP.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 30 September 1927, Page 8

LAD SAVES SHIP.

REPAIRS, RUDDEiR IN FIERCE' GALE. MELBOURNE, Aug. 22. Harry Pike, the 16-year-okl member of the crew of the American four-masted barquentine Centennial, saved the vessel and all (hands during a howling gale on the voyage from Columbia River, U.S.A., when he was lowered over the stern in a bo's unis chair and repaired a broken rudder-head. The story was told by Captain Frank Weidermann, when the barquentine arrived yesterday. When ninety-five days out from Columbia River, and with Pt. Lonsdale almost in view, the rudder head snapped, and the barquentine swung at the mercy of the gale. Pike volunteered to go ever the side, and lattempt to. mend the broken rudder. A bo’sun's chair was hastily rigged, and with Pike lashed securely in it, all hands were called to the rope, and he was lowered over. As each sea struck the vessel, the rudder was lifted almost clear of the water, to plunge hack again into a ■green trough, as the wave passed on. f ( ) have been buried beneath the full flooJ of any one of the seas would have meant death to Pike, hut he stuck to his job. Hastily raised on the line as each mighty sea surged by, he was lowered again and: again into the green troughs’. Thera were many narrow escapes, but at last he was able to la,six a spar to the rudder. A .succession of fierce squalls became part of the daily round When off the Fiji Islands. Once, near Lord Howe Island, the vessel was blown perilously near reef.

“It was a close thing,” the captain said. “We ran into, a bad blow, and I could not swing her round—the wind and sea were too strong. “Every minute took us nearer the reef, while the wind blew harder. We had one chance and we took it. “Instead of. taking in the canvas. T crowded it on. She swung right over—almost on her beam —but we held her to it. and just in time we cleared the’ broken water.”