STORMS AT SEA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15550, 6 March 1914, Page 8

STORMS AT SEA.

DISASTROUS SHIPWRECKS.

LOSS OF THE COBEQUID.

TfROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] San Francisco, February 3. The present winter has been a very severe one over a great portion of the United Stateswet, stormy, and cold. On both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts there have been many accidents to shipping, and a considerable number of lives have been lost. But in the numerous stories of terrifying experiences at sea told in the newspapers there has been none more exciting and dramatic than that of the rescue of the crew and passengers—to the number of 108 persons from the Royal Mail packet Cobequid, which, in a storm on a dark night, became impaled on Trinity Rock, a pinnacle of granite rising abruptly from the sea off the coast of Nova Scotia. For 36 hours, while the doomed vessel was being battered to pieces by the storm, wireless appeals were sent out for assistance. When, finally, the calls were heard,' and lifeboats ranged alongside, the Cobequid was beginning to break up, and quartities of her cargo covered the adjacent waters. The flood tide and gales drove her to far on the rock that her back was broken and the engineroom flooded. When, in this parlous condition, lifeboats came alongside. The work was carried out without the loss of a single life. The rescue is said to be one of the most notable ever accomplished on the Atlantic coast. A few days ago, on the Atlantic coast below New York,' the liner Nantucket rammed and sank the steamer Monroe, and of those aboard the latter 43 were drowned and 91 saved- The stricken Monroe, with her side gored deep by the sword-like steel prow of the Nantucket, filled rapidly, rolled over on her side, and in 10 minutes turned and plunged to the bottom, carrying with her the passengers and members of the crew who had failed to get clear of the wreck. The sea was running heavily and a thick bank of fog covered the waters when the collision occurred. Most of the passengers of the Monroe were in bed and asleep. They rushed on deck on the alarm, clad only in pyjamas in mci instances, and grabbing for lifebelts. Three lifeboats were launched. Then the vessel turned over, and the published. accounts describe many of those left aboard as crawling like rats up over the superstructure, portholes, windows, and companionways, until they rested just out of reach of the waves on the upper side of the halfcapsized vessel. When she sank, some of them Ifere left floating on the water, and were afterwards rescued by the lifeboats already afloat, and by other lifeboats that put off from the Nantucket. One man kept his wife afloat by swimming with her hair in his teeth, only to have her die a few | minutes after she was hauled aboard the Nantucket. ■