STEAMER IN A TIDAL WAVE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIV, Issue 125, 3 June 1910, Page 2

STEAMER IN A TIDAL WAVE.

AN ALARMING EXPERIENCE

The steamer Port Chalmers, of the Anglo-Australian Steam Navigation Company's line, which arrived at Adelaide from London early last week, had a sensational experience during the voyage (brief reference to which was made in our cables). She appears to have been nearly swamped by a mountainous tidal wave. The exciting incident happened as the steamer was rounding the Cape of Good Hope, From leaving London, on Ist April, to the vicinity of the Cape, beautifully fine weather ruled, but conditions then completely changed, and bad weather set in. On the evening of Saturday, 23rd April, in a heavy gale, which was experienced, strong squalls, with

! dense rain, passed over the steamer^ I which labored heavily in high, seas,; and shipped water fore and aft. The: tidal wave struck the Port Chalmers j about 3 a.m. on the following Monday. The captain, G. E. Warren* and the second officer, H. L. Stir* ling, were on the bridge at the time.i In the midst of heavy seas it cam© straight on the vessel like a mountainous white wall of water. Thel steamer rose in its face until shef seemed to stand almost perpendicu-< lar, the stern end dipping some fif-« teen feet in the sea. The billow theni crashed upon the vessel with terrifiei force. Water swept along the deck* the fore part of the iron deck house around the funnel amidships was buckled, and the interior damaged.) Every room bore evidence of "the? straining. Lifeboats were shifted! from the chocks. When the steral dipped the wheels and steering geari were carried away. The steamer waa going dead slow 3 and in the midst of! the confusion some of the firemenf rushed up from beloAV and said the vessel was sinking. The vessel battled! on, however. The water had washed! down the bunker hatches, and bo reached the stokehold, giving the alarm to the firemen. Then oil was freely used to reduce the troubled state of the waters, but up to within.l two days off the Australian coast the, weather proved of an exceptionally disturbed character. "We blame thet comet for our experiences,'.' said aa officer, "and we will all be heartily, glad when it has disappeared."

At the Southland conference of the* Farmers' Union, the president, Mr-Hi J. Middleton, said Canada was having the experience that America hadt had, of losing ground as a food-ex-porting country owing to the tremendous increase of her population, making a correspondingly large inside* consumption and an equal decrease of exports. He did not think there wa» another country so ideally situated im its mild climatic conditions for dairying as was this Dominion, and he was convinced of the great future before the industry.