A STORMY TIME.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 139, 17 June 1911, Page 6

A STORMY TIME.

THE MAORI ROUGHLY HANDLED

After nearly thirteen hours of battling against' a hardj&oufcherly gale and heavy head ~^o&i the turbine ferry steamer M^rr/ arrived at Lyttelton at B.3o■'a.m. on Thursday. The passage in its earlier stage was one of the worst that the Maori has had during her career of three and analf years in the ferry service. When she drew alongside Lyttelton "Wharf she bore marks of the violence of the seas that had swept over her in Cook Strait, and most of her passengers were evidently well pleased to. reach their journey's end.

Captain Alchrell informed a Chrfetdhureh reporter that the gale had been, about the worst he had experienced since lie had been in the terry fceryice. - The violence of the squalls in Cook Strait had been phenomenaj. The Maori left Wellington Wharf at 8 o'clock on Wednesday night, and 1 when she neared the. heads all the passengers disappeared blow. It was evident that there was going to be a dirty night outside. There was a hard gale blowing, and a high sea running, when the Maori cleared Pencarrow Heads, and started to fight her',way e cross Cook Strait. Fierce squalls frequently swept the vessel, and green neasi crashed over her.-bows as she steamed into the teeth of the gale.

At 8.50 p.m. th^ Maori ran into a terrific squall, and a jiuge sea crashed over, her bow, sweeping across th© forecastle' head and playing hayoc. The iron- flag-staff on the how* was bent, and the bed-plate of the reel on which-the wire hawsers are wound was torn from its fastenings sin the deck. The tons of green water crashed against the forward end of the steel 'deck structures, . smashing the shutters and the thick plate-glass of the square ports of the social hall on the promenade deck, and flooded the room. The timber facing the rail on the forward end of the promenade deck and' even on the bridge deck, which is thirty feet or more above tho water-line, was also smashed in a number of places. -The'forward end

of the vessel showed plain signs of the violence of the sea. The vessel was being driven into the gale and was behaving well, although she was extremely lively, bilt in'Vyiew of the damage wrought by the sea Captain Aklwell decided to slow the Maori down, and for some /hours she was steaming dead slow' against,,the seas. Frequently, heavy squalls swept over her, but by 1 o'clock in the morning the weather had moderated considerably, and the Maori was being driven at full speed once more. ' She made good tjme, and, as sh© neared Lyttel■ton, the/ gale and the sea. eased off considerably, and she arrived in port at 8.50 a.m., after a boisterous trip of nearly 13 hours.