BATTERED BY CYCLONE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXVI, Issue 25, 28 December 1945, Page 5

BATTERED BY CYCLONE

FRENCHMEN IN SCHOONER

(Rec 10.45 a.m.) LONDON, Dec. 27. After eight days of drifting at the mercy of a gale which sometimes reached 100 miles an hour, 19 Frenchmen were rescued from a three-masted schooner in the Bay of Biscay on Christmas Day. The story of their adventure was told upon their arrival at Plymouth in the Belgian liner Copacabana which saved them. The men were the crew and passengers of the sailing ship St. Vonnec bound from Newfoundland to Bordeaux. The ship was overtaken by the cyclone on December 16. Her sails were torn to shreds, the steering gear damoged, and the forecastle head smashed in. On Christmas Eve the look-out on an American steamer saw the schooner wallowing in the trough of huge seas in the Bay of Biscay. A? her own boats were damaged by the cyclone, the American ship could not lower her boats, but she sent out an S.O.S. which brought the Belgian liner to the scene. The captain of the schooner said: "We managed to keep afloat only by working the pumps for 45 minutes every hour. We were almost exhausted. Some had given up hope when the American ship saw us."