A STORMY VOYAGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13844, 2 September 1908, Page 7

A STORMY VOYAGE.

THE BRITISH MONARCH. "I ' •' ■ ■ ARRIVAL AT AUCKLAND. THE CAPTAIN'S STORY. 1 Discoloured from stem to stern, her hull : bearing the strenuouc marks of wave-buffet- <■, ting from continent to continent, her fun- . nel brine-whitened, her steel decks eh- > crusted in parts with rust, the top of her » foremast missing, and her stern stanchions . carried away—-that is how th© British . Monarch, one of the overdue American [ fleet colliers reached Auckland, and with , 5000 tons of coal : u her hull for the battleI ship, she is waiting instructions before ! proceeding to pick up the fleet. The British Monarch is a British ship, ; with a partly British crew, and she is comi manded by Captain G. M. Anderson. Mr, J. H. Dunbar is her chief officer, and Mr. i Andrew Forsyth her chief engineer. This' group of officers were chatting together amidships when the Herald representative •, scrambled up the side yesterday afternoon. i The Monarch, deep down with fleet coal, ' lefi Newport News on June 18 last, and called at St. liucian. Then on th© journey through the Straits of Magellan it was rough. "Gales and snowstorms," explained ' Captain. Anderson. " I have come through before in '36 hours—this time it took five 1 days. It was nothing but. a. succession of 1 gales -" . ■ : : - Some idea of the roughness of the passage may be gathered from the fact that the ship's ordinary smooth-weather run of ' 240 miles per day fell as low as 85, 89, and 97 miles. Tlie British Monarch, in ordinary; conditions, is capable - of about 9£ knots. This voj-age she did not average more than 6£. " Yesterday was the first day of the whole voyage tluit we had » fair wind," said the first mate. - Misfortunes never come singly." The vessel lost her foremast, head on the Atlantic coast before she encountered her rough . sou'-westerlies lower down. The loss of the topmast occurred in a. remarkable way. A flash of lightning struck the ship, and, ' the topmast, went. The British Monarch expected to pick up the fleet at Sydney, but now she will not be able to do so. "If we had come by the Capo of Good Hope we would have been here ten days ago, easily," raid the captain. Now the ship expects to oat up to the fleet at Manila; but that depends on th© orders she gets. • Th© British Monarch is a steel ship throughout, and even her decks are steel. Despite the marks of her rough passage she has a smart appearance, which justifies her captain's confidence in her The Baron Minto, the companion collier, left Newport News a day before the British Monarch. As slio is « faster ship than the one in port herinon-arrival points to a breakdown in the machinery. She came over the same course as the British Monarch, and experienced similar rough weather. Captain Anderson stated that he sighted a vessel answering to her descrip- ! tion at "field", anchor in the Straits of > Magellan.