AT MERCY OF THE SEA

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4951, 4 February 1937, Page 7

AT MERCY OF THE SEA

WITH STEERING-GEAR DISABLED A TERRIBLE ORDEAL. "The s.s. is lying helpless with her steering-gear disabled," is a fairly common report during these days Of winter gales, writes Captain Frank H. Shaw in the Daily Mail. It doesn't sound very dramatic, and, to the casual observer, the steering-gear of a ship seems the one thing unworthy of interest. Actually, however, a ship's steering gear is even more vital to her than her engines or her watertight bulkheads.

What happens when the steeringgear breaks down? The hard-tried ship immediately swings round into the trough of the sea. What has previously been a semi-orderly motion, a blending of pitching and rolling, becomes at once a heartrending roll. Not that rolling which affects passengers to their discomfort, but real rolling, with white-crested waves raging abroad over either rail, with the well decks so deeply awash that a man, attempting to cross them, is dipped shoulder deep, and has to cling to whatever hand-hold offers to save himself from being torn to leeward and brought up, stunned and helpless, in the lee scuppers.

Waves piled up as high as the navigating bridge and occasionally wash the watch-keepers from their foothold. The ship, in a word, becomes little better than a tide-washed rock.

Only those who have known the fury of the Atlantic seas coming aboard can appreciate their devastating savagery. And the rudderless ship is at their mercy. She cannot feint and dodge as she is able to when under control. She cannot hurl herself across the foamy crests; shipping a little, certainly, but nothing dangerous. And all the while lifeboats are being splintered to matchwood; deckhouse doors beaten in.

While the havoc progresses the desperate crew, led by second mate and carpenter, whose duty it is to tend the steering-gear, strive to make repairs. It is within the bounds of possibility to rig a new rudder from derricks and bulkhead doors; a grotesque paddle that cannot be steered or handled by any other power than the cargo winches.

A ship steered thus is slightly more manageable than a foundering barge, but only slightly so. And to make a jury-rudder takes hours, perhaps'days. Its putting in place can be as long an operation, and even when in place the sea probably takes a fiendish delight in destroying it forthwith. Meanwhile, the storm-houtided ship rolls and sags helplessly in the troughs. To all appearance, she is doomed; what's the good of fighting to save her, it.is only postponing the evil hour? That is when the SOS is sent out: an SOS which to the layman by his fireside seems unnecessary, with only the steering-gear carried away! I have rolled, helpless, threatened, for 64 hours in a ship whose rudder had gone, in the pre-wireTess days. We rigged a jury -rudder; the main rudder-head having been carried completely away, so that it 'hung uselessly in the chains. A sea-anchor had no 'effect; the wind and sea were so terrific that the ship was blown to leeward like a balloon. Three men were killed outright, two more were maimed, and the ship looked a wreck. But we weathered the danger. If we had liot we should have been drowned. We were in 1 loneliest stretch of sea in the world.