A SAILOR’S STORY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16493, 7 March 1914, Page 9

A SAILOR’S STORY.

THE LOSS OF THE DALGOMAR. ABANDONED IN MID-OCEAN. SURVIVORS RESCUED BY FRENCH VESSEL. YOUNG NEW ZEALANDER’S ADVENTURES. Mr W. Carston, of Little River, has received from his son, Mr A. Carston, the young sailor whose experiences as a member of the crew of the British ship Dalgomar were briefly referred to recently, a long letter giving an account of the. loss of the Dalgomar in the South Pacific. 'JTlie narrative is a thrilling story of peril, hardship and tragedy on the sea. and of a gallant rescue by: a crew of Frenchmen, who stood by the helpless vessel through two days of storm until they were at last able to take off the survivors. The Dalgomar was a large steel sailing ship, bound from Valparaiso to Taltal, on the West Coast of South America, in ballast, and it was her.ballast shifting in a gale that brought her to disaster. Mr Carston writes from Dover, England, as Mows: — BALLAST SHIFTS IN A STORM. “Wo discharged our cargo of coal from Newcastle, and took in 1200 tons of ballast—that is, the rough shingle placed in tile lower hold to prevent the ship from capsizing, and signed on sixteen hands and went to sea on September 25, for Taltal. I told you Tocopilla, but the orders were changed. Wo* had fine weather up till October 8, then it came on to blow from the eastward. On the ninth I was watch below when a squall struck the ship at 10.15 a.m., carrying away the fore lowertopsail and shifting the ballast to lee-, ward a little. As we were under lower topsails at the. time, this, left only the foresail on the fore, and lower topsails on the main and mizzen.. All hands wore immediately called to trim ballast, and the starboard watch—that was the one I was in—went to dinner at seven bells. At noon I went to the wheel and was there till two o’clock. The helm was. hard down all the time, and the ship was rolling heavily on account of the .sail being blown away.. At three o'clock I was relieved, and went down the No. 3 hatch to help in finishing off the ballast. It was nearly levelled, again by this time. SHIP ON HER BEAM ENDS. “I was down'about twenty minutes when she gave a. terrific roll to leeward. and the ballast ran from under our, feet, carrying us with it. At the same time Water was pouring down the batch. We had great difficulty. in getting on deck on account of the list. When we got on deck she was listed to an angle of about forty degrees. The captain then gave orders to prepare to wear ship. “We squared the. main and cross-jack-yards, but the ship would not pay off, s 6 then we hoisted the inner and outer jibs with the sheets to windward, but in the meantime the fore-sheet had carried away, and there were no sails at all on the fore, and the ship had been slowly going over more and more. The rudder was useless by this time, as it was out of the water. It was useless to try to do anything with the ship now, so the skipper gave orders to get the lifeboats out if possible. . ... A BOAT SMASHED. “ I walked from forward to aft on the ship’s side, so you can tell how far we were over. The lee boat was launched first with about five men in her, but was broken up instantly, the men being thrown in the water. They all managed to get back except one. While this was going on I went down on a line to the sail locker, and passed up the 'ife-belts and took one for myself. As I was coming out of the locker, I saw the captain come out of the saloon and hand a box to the cook,

who was'on a life-line, that is, a line hanging from the weather side to enable a person to pull himself up the almost perpendicular deck. THE CAPTAIN KILLED. “ The captain, who was an old man, then Caught the line', but could not hold on. He let go and dropped into the scuppers, striking his head, and killing himself. The. cook went to his •assistance, but lie, 'too, was caught by the sea. The last I saw; of him was when he threw up his hands and sank. It was now, a case of each man for himself. I scrambled up to the remaining boat, and jumped in as she was going down. We had no sooner reached the water than down came the davit with a crash, tearing the side clean out. I was. caught under it, and down I went. - STRUGGLING FOR LIFE. “ I thought I was done for, but finally I got clear and grasped a big plank. My word, it was cold 1 I could see the others struggling for their lives. It was terrible to hear the cries of the men drowning, the crash of wreckage and the whistling of the wind. First one head would bob up and disappear and then another. There was a wooden punt about twenty yards away. 1 struck out for this, blit then remembered that there were no provisions, and turned towards the main rigging. •ON THE SHIP AGAIN. “ I got out of the water more dead than alive with fatigue and cold, and walked along the mast to the weather half round of the poop. Nearly all of the bauds were there, except four who were drowned. “ The carpenter, who, when he saw that the shin was a case, had got an axe and started to cut away the masts. He did not attempt to go in the boats but stuck to his work, fer if the masts had not been cut away none of ns would be here to-day. After we got ■back was the worst time of all, as we could do nothing but sit doivu and look death in the face, and I hope we did it like men. There wns not a man amongst us who did net say his prayers. i. i CUTTING AWAY THE MASTS. “At last the carpenter got the mizzen cut away. It helped her a little, but the decks were still nearly perpendicular. When the main and fore were cut away she righted to about an angle of 20 degrees. The wind .was from the south-east, and I had on only a shirt and no trousers, and i felt the cold keenly. “ About five o'clock we thought if, safe, to go below, so I lowered myself into the captain’s cabin. I got his revolver and cartridges, and, blowing open the slop-chest door, broke up Ml the bottles of rum and spirts I could find, for .they would have been a groat temptation. I put on some dry clothes, and the second mate came down and we started sending up biscuits. By seven o’clock the main and mizzen masts were over, but the stump of the fore-lowermast held on, and every time the ship rolled the keel would go up and come down on the keelson with a bang. If if bad missed the keelson once it would have knocked a hole in the bottom. “We were about 1200 miles from the nearest land, and out of the trade of ships, so we were in a had way. There was not much sleep at night for any of us. Wo did not expect to sight any vessels, but the next morning the man on the look-out saw a light. FRENCH BARQUE TO THE RESCUE. “We immediately sent up rockets, and .saw an answering one, and when daylight came we saw a four-masted barque flying the French flag. She was the Loire, of Dunkerque. She canto as near as possible, but it was impossible to lower a boat as the sea was still running heavy. However, she promised to stand bv till the weather moderated. I went down into the hold and everything was in confusion, the ballast, being all on the lee-side. It was a wonder the ship did not. capsize. It was Monday, two 'days after, that the wincl moderated sufficiently for the Loire to send a boat. On Sunday the burial service was read for those who were drowned. We were.living on raw bacon and biscuits. On Monday there.was still a heavy sen. They pulled to windward, and then wo (sent them two linos,. one to pull us through the water 'to the boat and the other to hold the boat. LEAVING THE WRECK.

“Thirteen men went in tho first boat and while it was away tlio carpenter and I got everything ready to firo the ship, but when tho Frenchmen returned they told us to leave her. I was the third to last to leave the ship, the second .mate and the carpenter being last. Wd*could take nothing but the clothes wo stood up in, for we had to go about two hundred yards through the water to the boat. The Dalgonar looked an awful sight from the other Ship’s deck.

, THE VOYAGE TO CAPE TOWN. “We then stood away for Cape Town. Tlio passage was not too pleasant, for we had only ono shift of clothes and there was' plenty of ice and snow about.- For three months we fed on biscuits and beans, and very little of that. Our Christmas dinner consisted of two ounces of tinned beef, a spoonful of beans and a biscuit. For breakfast we had a biscuit soaked in weak coffee, without milk or sugar, and for tea a biscuit soaked in water and beans. It was a very miserable passage —three months and eleven days out of sight of land. “It was a curious thing that help appeared thirteen hours after the accident and we were taken off on the thirteenth of the month, thirteen men going in each boat!”