WIND-JAMMERS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 33, 21 January 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

WIND-JAMMERS.

REOOLT ECTIONS RECALLED BY THE WRECK OF THE PREUSSEN. (Ry Stanley Portal Hyatt tn ‘Answers.’’) “She'll never do it—not in the -creation of cits! If she doesn’t break her back when her bow is on tho top of one big sea and her stern on the top of another, she'll get caught in* a squall, and go down, driven clean under, all standing, before the handful of Dutchmen and Dagoes they call her crew can take in a stitch of her canvas!” These words, uttered hy our quartermaster, came back to me vividly when I read of the wreck of the Preusscn, tho great German five-master, which went on the recks off Dover, for they were spoken years ago—fifteen years ago, 1 think, perhaps more—concerning another five-master, which, like ourselves, was trying to beat round Cape Horn. She had twice as much canvas set as wo had, and went past us, taking seas aboard in solid lumps. HEARTS OF OAK.

Our vessel was British, three-mast-ed, and adequately manned—our owners, being old-fashioned, like British crews—and after two months of it, half-frozen all the time, we got into the Southern Pacific Ocean. But in what part of the Deep that live-master buried her crew no man will ever know. A few months later, they posted her as “missing”—that was all. Then the insurance monev was paid, and the hearts of a score of women broken. “Over-loaded, under-manned,” that should have been her epitaph 1 never met a man yet who could say, truthfully, that lie had actually seen a big sailing-vessel go down in a storm out on the high seas, and I have never even heard of a man who has bean a survivor from such a wreck. It is one thing to be wrecked, as the Preussen has been wrecked ; and driven C.n to the shore, oi on to the rocks, •™d be battered to pieces bv the seas. The crew may have some* sort of a chanc.i then. But it is an entirely different matter when the vessel goes down in mid-ocean, actually borne under by the waves. In those circumstances, there is i:o chance for anybody: and even if a boat were launched, it would lie swamped immediately. Once on the outward trip to Sidney. -I just got on the edge of the horror of being driven clean under water. \\ <• had made a verv fast passage from the Capo cf Good Hops, but as we drew near Tasmania, tho wind stiff.-ned into a full gale, and as a Jesuit the skipper decided not to -try the passage through Bnss Straits but to go round Cape Pillar, at the south ot the island.

BEFORE THE GALE. Me passed the Capa about sunset, anti the gale seemed to have moderated eo> siclerably. Consequently, for the first tune for many days, we ivcre feeling almost comfortable and cheerful, though, of course, the sea was still nmning mountains high. At eight bells —eight, o clock in the evening—we got it—the most savage squall I have ever known It came trn dead astern, and tho night was so black that we had no warning. AVe had not much canvas set, but we had too much for that squall, yet th ro was absolutely nothing to be done. It was on us before we could take in a rag, and then it was too late, because the sails were set like boards under the appalling pressure of the wind. Sh'j was a great, big, iron vessel, built for cargo rather than’for speed, but she did eighteen knots an hour during that squall. She was literally trembling, and the water seemed to be boiling found her. I think that I. for one. was trembling, too, for if her sails had gone, and she had slowed down,, she would have been pooped instantly by a huge sea, and there would have been no one left to tell the talc.

On another occasion, we were off the River Plate in company with a German barque. 1 hose waters are amongst the most dangerous in the world, for the squalls have a way of coming from : ny m int of the compass, without the slightest wa-ning. We had had a fight south-westerly breeze all my watch. ■i ’d I bad got most of the canvas on her. I had my dinner, and turned in, and was lust dozing off, when I heard the mates whistle blow fioreelv; “All hands shorten sail!”

I tumbled out pretty quick, to find a white squall coming down in our bow from the north-east. Had it got us. fairly-, it would have taken every stitch out of us, nnd oven then we n j‘’h. have reckoned we had escaped

AVe had a fine crew, and we got the canvas in in time. The rain came fast, which, meant it would tie a bad squall. There is an old. and very true rhyme;

/When the rain's before th? wind. Topsail halliards you must mind. When the wind’s before the rain, Haul your topsails up again.” There was th? German barque about a mile nnd a half from us, and, at first, the min blotted her clean out fiom our v-sion. AVhen we could see her again. I v.a.s korror-struek to see thut they hud not lx?cn ahle to get in her canvas. The full fury of the squall had just caught ter. Over, over, over she was going! It seemed as if’nothing e-mld save her, and then, almost s*m*.dt.nmous!y, practically all her sails blew clean out of the bolt-ropes, torn into ribbon.,. She rightid herself instantly, scorned to shake herself, and then the sou.-ill was past. R u t it was a terribly c'ose shave.

Properly manned, a sailing-ship is loally a .safer craft than a steamer when it- comes to a question of extremely bad weather. LUCKY- FOR THE OTHER FELLOW! Tw;co vessels, on which I have been have narrowly escaped being run down. Ti e first time was in the Doldrums, a few degrees north of the Equator. AVe had not seen a sail for a c*>iipie of weeks, at least, and then suddenly-, out of the night, an immense f*nr-master, carrying no sidelights— a Yankee or German. proLVb-ly—came light down on us. missing us bv about a ship s length. The second time was in a fog in the Channel, when a German liner passed so close, practically nt full speed, that we could almost have jumped aboard her. We could se the officers’ faces through the fog, and they had gone very white, for

we were an old wooden ship laden with timber, and, had that liner struck us, her Ih>w would have just crumpled, up. Sometimes, in a grim way, the sailing vessel gets her revenge on her successful modern competitor, and this would have been one of these cases.