BOY’S BRAVERY AT SEA

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 24 May 1932, Page 7

BOY’S BRAVERY AT SEA

KEPT TO WHEEL IN STORM CREW WASHED OUT OF BUNKS How a 14-year-old apprentice stuck grimly tq the wheel of the ship in the teetli of a terrific storm was revealed when the Fleetwood steam trawler Bostonian arrived, at her home port, recently. In charge of Skipper John P-arker, of Fleetwood, the vessel was steaming home at half speed from the West Scottish fishing grounds, and . was near the Skerryvore Lighthouse whe.n they ran info a north-westerly gale. Such a sea struck the trawler that it is (believed to. have actually be.nt her. The waves 'bounded over, the side and carried everything - before them. Stout iron railings were twisted like rubber, every electric light oils deck extinguished, and heavy planks of wood were thrown hither and thither. Some of them lodged on the wheel-house platform, many feet above fbie deck. Searchlights were smashed to atoms, big ventilators broken, and water rushed (below.

The crow were literally washed out of their bunksj coal was shifted, and the trawler turned on her beam ends. Her bulwarks were level with the sea. and every few seconds further Seas seemed likely to engulf her. The apprentice was at the wheel at the time, and was lucky to escape with his life, but he stuck to his post. Fortunately he was standing with the door at his elbow jammed to the wheelhouse side. As the seas rushed up they smashed the wheel-house windows against the door, which was carried across the wheel-house and over the side into the sea.

To get the trawler to right herself she was turned “head to wind,” aiid for nine hours the crow fought the seas inside the vessel. “In a lifetime at sea I have never known anything like it (before,” remarked a member of the crew. “It would not have been so bad, but the trawler lay on her tarn ends as a result of the coal shifting suddenly, and we. thought she would never right again. Our lifeboat ha.d. gone and there was not a light on deck. “Four of the crew were put to clearing the engine-room, because we thought that if we could only keep the engines going we oonld, as a last resource, have put the trawler ashore somewhere in the vicinity. “More than one of ns now suffer from ‘ner.ves,’ and it made matters worse as lightning was flashing as badly as I have ever seen it. Af one time we thought we would have to put oil bags over the side in order to calm the water until we sorted ourselves out, but it was not necessary.”