MAORI SHIPS A BIG SEA.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 12 September 1935, Page 5

MAORI SHIPS A BIG SEA.

DECK GEAR SWEPT AWAY. WORST PASSAGE OP THE YEAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night. Wallowing throughout the night in the fierce seas thrown up by a full southerly gale the inter-island, steamer Maori arrived at Lyttelton three hours late this morning, with most of her 130 passengers showing the effects of the roughest passage the steamers in the service have had this year.

After the ship left Wellington, speed was reduced to fourteen knots in Cook Strait, where the worst seas were, encountered, and this speed was later reduced to thirteen knots, so as to enable the seamen to cover the ventilators and lash down moveable goar, which, was in danger of being swept overboard. SWEPT FROM STEM TO STERN.

Twisted railings on the top deck showed the effect of a monster sea which, at about 10 p.m., swept over the vessel from stem to stern, covering over the bridge. On the port side deck cabins were flooded, hinged gratings were torn from the deck, and two heavy seats were ripped from their fastenings and swept overboard. The wave which carried them away took them the full length of the deck, and dashed them against some lateral railings, twisted these back to the bulwark rails, and then-lifted the seats overboard, just clear of two cars which were secured on the forward deck. Had the seats struck the cars they too might have been swept away. The same wave shifted heavy boxes of lifeboat gear secured, on the boat-deck. Passengers who had fallen asleep were awakened by the crash of tons of water against their cabin doors, some o-f which were violently swung back of? their hooks, allowing floods up to a fn t deep to invade one or two of the a a ins.