LONG DRIFT RECALLED

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 143, 21 May 1925, Page 11

LONG DRIFT RECALLED

PERTHSHIRE’S ADVENTURES.

A CAPTAIN’S REMINISCENCES. The sensational ocean drift of the steamer Perthshire, a unit of the Shire Line, which sent its steamers to Australian and New Zealand ports 26 years ago, is recalled by the recent visit of Captain J. Wallace, .master of the Scottish-Shire Line steamer Argyllshire, to Port Chalmers. In an interview last week, Captain AVallace said that the Perthshire was his first command. He was then a comparatively young man. The Perthshire left Sydney on April 26, 1889, bound for Bluff, and broke her tail shaft when two days out from Sydney Heads. The vessel was in light trim, and was left at the mercy of wind nn’d sea. There was no such thing as wireless in those days, and the Perthshire drifted for eight weeks in a zig-zag track across the Tasman Sea. Altogether she drifted nearly 1500 miles. The ship was absolutely helpless, and on different dates during the drift the scow Whangaroa, bound from New Zealand to Sydney with timber, the barque Northern Chief, bound for an Australian port, and the sailing vessel Verajean, bound for Newcastle, were sighted, and signals were exchanged. The captains of all these sailing vessels reported the Perthshire’s plight on arrival at their destinations, and additional tugs and steamers were despatched to search the vast expanse of waters. Tho Perthshire, however, was a mystery ship until June 13, when she was sighted by the officers and crew of the Union Company’s steamer Talune. then on a voyage from Auckland to Sydney. Captain Spinks, of the Talune, had received instructions to deviate from the usual course to search for the Perthshire, and the disabled steamer was located in the northern latitudes. The Talune entered Sydney Heads with the Perthshire in tow on June 19. After a new tail shaft had been fitted, the Perthshire sailed again for Bluff, where she arrived at the end of July, 1899. Captain Wallace, who, during recent years, has been in command of the Banffshire, the Ayrshire, and now the Argyllshire, said that the Perthshire was taken over by the British Government after the outbreak of war in 1914, and converted into a dummy battleship. Along with 12 other steamers similarly converted, the Perthshire did useful work in tho North Sea with naval officers and men on board. After her conversion she was a truly faithful representation of a fighting machine. The old ship, he added, was still afloat.