NIGHTMARE TRIP

Hokitika Guardian, 17 June 1938, Page 8

NIGHTMARE TRIP

TWELVE LEFT IN HOSPITALS. TRAMP STEAMERS EXPERIENCE. SYDNEY, June 8. Injuries and sickness on a nightmare voyage reduced by a third the original crew of the steamer Wellington Court. Storm-scarred, without a square inch of paint on her bows, and with a list to port, the tramp reached Sydney at the week-end. Twelve of the original crew of 36 had been left in h'.snitals at one or other of the 40 ports vsited. None of the ship’s original seamen remained, the steward and fourth engineer had been put ashore, and only two out of eight firemen were left. Remaining members of the original crow took to their bunks at the weekend, worn out after fighting successive gales. VENTILATORS CARRIED AWAY. Eight hundred miles off Bermuda, in February, two stokehold ventilators wore wrenched out of the deck of the Wellington Court. Fighting this gale used so much coal that the vessel had to put into Bermuda for more. In March, the Wellington Court weathered the terrific Atlantic blow in which the Anglo-Australian disappeared without trace. JUST MISSED BOMBS. Her officers believe the Anglo-Austra-lian, was overwhelmed suddenly by lrjoun heinous .seas, before an S.O.iS. could be sent. , “About the only thing we seem to have missed is one of Franco’s bombs in the Mediterranean. “But the tanker British Corporal, in whose wake we were steaming, was bombed, and had to race for port,” .said one of the crew.