A FURIOUS GALE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 25 April 1907, Page 1

A FURIOUS GALE.

The crossing was a vdry rough one. As the Berlin got farther aiid farther away from the shelter of the weather shore, the force of the furious gale was more and more severely felt. Captain Parkinson, who was a passenger, on his way to take up a command at Amsterdam, said that the gale was, so fierce and the so high — worse than anything in his experen'ce — that he deemed it wiser not to undress or turn in, but to keep on deck warmly clothed, all night. He had reason to congratulate himself on his foresight. Other passengers on board included Mr Arthur Herbert, the well-known "King's Messenger," and about 30 members of the German Opera Company whose brilliant season at Covent Garden came to so sudden a close last Monday morning. Freighted with more than 140 huifltttl souls, the Berlin left her English pori shortly after 10 p.m., and plunged into the wild and stormy night. At the Hook of Holland on Wednesday night the storm was so violent that no one could sleep. "The houses literally swayed," says one resident, "such a fierce and long-continued hurricane has not been known for years." The Hook of Holland is a bleak and bare village, unsheltered from the fiercest gales, and is' approached between two breakwatei's rle'drly Half, it mile' apart, and jutting out to sea for over a mile. In rough weather it is difficult for steamers to steer between the two breakwaters. In spite of the frightful storm there were people on the pier watching for the Berlin, which was due at 5.5 a.m. yesterday morning. Shortly after six o'clock the steamer s lights were made out. She appeared to be making good weather of it and doing well, considering the extraordinary violence of the gale and sea. At last she Was .close iin, and a few more minutes would have placed. . lleT Sa.fely in the "Nieuwe Waterfteg" Or ''N&W Waterway" which leads up from toe Hcok to Rotterdam under the breakwater, after her tempestuous crossing. Suddenly she was seen by the spectators to be spun violently round to a position at right angles to her course and ten to be hurled with terrific force on the end of the Northern Pier, which is submerged at high water, which at the time the tide was sft above its usual height, owing to the protracted westerly gale. The fine steamer which was almost exactly the same size as the New Zealand Union Company's s.s. Rotoma|hana — when she struck on the pier was broken in two. She broke in half just abaft the after funnel and immediately the forward half of the vessel sank with it most of the passengers and crew. The after half remained fixed on the stone work upon which the steamer had struck.