AORANGI IN GALE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21505, 31 May 1933, Page 12

AORANGI IN GALE

EXPERIENCE NEAR SYDNEY LINER'S SEVERE BUFFETING During a fierce gale off the New South Wales coast early on the morning of Saturday, May 20, the steamer Aorangi, which was travelling from Auckland to Sydney, without the use of one of her four engines, received a severe buffeting. It was one of the worst gales experienced by the liner, tho wind having blown at hurricane force for many hours. So high were the seas and so terrific was the wind at 3 a.m., when the liner was 50 miles from the coast, that Captain J. F. Spring-Brown, apparently anxious about the possibilities of entering tho port, wirelessed for a report on the conditions at tho Sydney Heads. With tho gale increasing in intensity, the Aorangi made remarkable headway. Tho distance of 50 miles was covered in less than six hours. At 8.30 a.m. the liner came within sight of the Heads, but vision was not clear, and she must have been then only about two miles from shore. Tho seas between the Heads wero running high, and Captain SpringBrown decided to wait outside. The liner went almost as far south as Port Hacking, and came up the coast and made an entry at 10.54 a.m. The/ pilot steamer Captain Cook led the liner into the channel near Chowder Bay, where a pilot went aboard.