STEAMER IN A GALE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 15 June 1928, Page 8

STEAMER IN A GALE.

RHOEILVES A SEVERE) TOSSING. HECK FITTINGS DAMAGED. , (By Telegraph—Press Association.) AUCKiLANID, June 14. The steamer Ayiqeric arrived this morning after fourteen days from Nauru. Sue encountered the storm which tho Pacific airmen experienceo on the latter part of their trip ano lor four days pitched and rolled in heavy seas. The Aymeric, which was loaded with crushed phosphate rock, was swept by mountainous seas from bunday until Tuesday. She was practically hovo to north of New Zeuiam. and encountered. furious squads, accompanied by diencfuiig rain. She pitched and strained in the raging seas, and on Tuesday, at midnight, the height of.the storm, the s-ea swqpt right across the, ueck, carrying away the ventaiators, broke away tne Heavy railing on the bridge deck. Water poured down the engine room skylight and flooded the engine room. A lifeboat in the bridge deek, twenty-five feet above the- water line, was filled. Both poop anil forecastle were isolated .islands for the time being, with the well decks submerged.

While the officers on the bridge nursed the vessel tenderly, the engineers crawled round heaving steel platforms, and the firemen in the stokehold had an uneasy footing, but the furnaces were regularly fed.