THREE NIGHTS ON MAST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18679, 8 April 1924, Page 9

THREE NIGHTS ON MAST.

WRECKED CREW'S ORDEAL. CAPTAIN TELLS HIS STORY Two hungry and exhausted sailors, with frost-bitten hands and feet, were rescued from the top of the mast of the ketch barge Lord Hamilton, which was wrecked on the Goodwin Sands recently. They were wrapped in the remains of the torn topsail and lashed to the mast. The Ramsgate lifeboat crew saw the flapping rag when they went out to the wreck, but darkness and the gale prevented them from seeing a man's hand waved from a hole in the sail. They went back to report that all the crew were dead. Two, indeed, were dead. Skipper W. Fames and David Davies, the survivors, saw their comrades grow numb and fall in the sea. They saw the lifeboat sweep beneath them, over the submerged deck of the barge, but they could not make themselves heard or ,§een. They saw for three nights the blazing crescent of Ramsgate Harbour and the winking lights of the Goodwin lightships, but they could not make anybody see their own pale fires, made from shreds of tihe sail. They were rescued because the lifeboat lost its anchor and chain near the wreck. The. motor lifeboat put out from Ramsgate to look for the anchor, and the crew saw that it was not a torn scrap of sailcloth that protruded from the sail, but a man's waving hand. 'That barge has been my home for two years, and now it is gone," said Skipper Farn.es in Ramsgate Hospital. "Our steering gear went out of order at midnight and we van ashore in a fog. "As the ship went down I stuffed two dozen boxes of matches into my pockets and we swarmed up the mast. There were four of us then. We made flares with the matches and bits of sail, but nobody saw us. Dawn cheered us, but it brought a terrific gale, which tossed up about so that we could hardly keep our grip on the mast. Wave after wave leaped up and drenched us. "We wrapped the sail round us for shelter, but still we shivered. One of tho men, Walter Deakin, suddenly lost his hold and dropped into the sea, and none of us spoke a word for a long time after that. "Then Walter Medhurst, another sailor, lost his grip and was drowned. That left only Davies and me. "A lightship then saw us. We heard and saw her rockets and guns, and began to hope. We saw the Ramsgate lifeboat on Its way to us, and we shouted at the top of our voices. I put out my hand to wave and tried to rear my whole body out of the sail, but the biting wind drove me back. 'When we looked out again the lifeboat had left us. v • "Davies and I began to sing. I gave him a favourite of mine, 'Would Anybody Envy Us?' and even that cheered him up. He joined in the chorus, and we sang until we were tired. Now and then ,we smoked a cigarette. "On the next morning, my mate Raid: "What are we going to have for breakfast this morning, old man?' I replied: 'Bacon and v eggs, and a piece of toast." This naturally mnde him laugh. Tb ; s ioke and others kept us amused until Davies began to show signs of being downhearted. I sang him 'Little Grey Home in the West.'

"I would have been downhearted, too, but a black speck suddenly appearing jn the sea. making toward us," made our hearts leap. It was the lifeboat. We determined that the crew should " see us this time, and they did."