A STORMY VOYAGE OF EIGHT MONTHS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12663, 17 September 1904, Page 2 (Supplement)

A STORMY VOYAGE OF EIGHT MONTHS.

The British ship Routenburn, Captain Dalrymple, which arrived at San Franqsco on August 16, from Newcastle, England, has ended a long and disastrous passage. Storms beset the sailing vessel's path from the outset of the voyage, and, before the Routenbum's journey was two weeks old, two of her apprentices had been swept from the ship's deck into ocean graves, and four members of the crew, three seamen and the third ©fficer, were in the sick bay nursing injuries received from flying spars. The Routenburn herself was sadly battered by the sea. She was taken into Queenstown, her deckhouses wrecked, her sails blown to rags, and hei rigging twisted into a snarl that human effort could never untangle. She was in distress with a vengeance. She left Neivcastle. England, on December 18, 1903, and December 21 encountered a south-wester, during which J. Woodruff, an apprentice, 15 years old, was washed overboard and drowned. The vessel reached latitude 60.04 north, longitude 17.20 west, on December 28, and there met a hurricane, ftlso from the south-west. The Routenburn was thrown on he. beam ends. She was buried beneath roaring torrents of wildswept water one moment and thr next tossed skyward until the wind whistled under" her keel. Seas boarded her and smashed in deckhouses a3 if they had been built of paper instead of good, tough teak. Lifeboats were converted into kindling wood and the fragments swept overboard. Sails were blown to rags, steel rigging was torn adrift and every now and then one of the tall masts would shed a spar. R. Richardson, another apprentice, a first voyager and of ■the same tender age as Woodruff, was picked from the waist of the ship by a wave am' whirled beyond the reach of the strong arms of his shipmates. He was never seen ©gain. When the hurricane had blown itself out the Routenburn lay upon the water as nearly ? wreck as a floating ship can be. Three sailors anr« the third mate were disabled. Queenstown was reached on January 16, and there the vesse remained until February 26, when, damage repaired and with a full crew, she resumed ibei royag. » She fought sales for eighteen days off Cape Horn, but, with that exception, the rest of the voyage was peaceful and without event.