STEAMER'S AWFUL PERIL

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4307, 16 March 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

STEAMER'S AWFUL PERIL

The Ifnnibnrg-Ainortcan £t earner Frisia, crippled and almost sinking, with several of her officers and crew injured, put into Queenstown the other morning, after one of the most perilous and exciting adventures in mid-ocean that even befell a vessel.

Seven days previously thci Frisia had left Hamburg for Portland, (Maine, and Boston. When in mid Atlantic she encountered the full fury of a gale and a. tempestuous sea. Her holds were lightly filled, and she was tossed about in’ a most alarming manner, and she heaved over at angles which were sometimes most dangerous. In the midst of the storm a spare shaft, with propeller attached, weighing many tons altogether, snapped the steel lashings on the ’tween deck, and straightway took possession of the entire deck. The huge tail of steel with the enormous blades swayed from either port or starboard with each heavy and forbidding roll of the vessel. Every one of the crow who could bo spared worked hard and desperately in attempting to cheek this weighty fiend lot loose. Many men were maimed and bruised, and they all seemed to ho helpless.

The shaft and propeller shot continuously from one side to the otlici, and at each lurch the shaft’s end struck heavily against the ship. Plates were punctured as if they wei;o so much tin. After a while plates wore ripped out altogether, and water rushed through tho gaus. Finally, to the happy relief of everybody, the shaft disappeared through one of the holes it had made and fell into the water. But the propeller remained behind to do more damage. At length the propeller crashed through Dio deck and dropped into No. 4 "hold. It .smashed several pianos and hir.de pulp of much valuable merchandise. Thou it was secured and made fast.

The abandonment of the voyage was imperative, and the vessel was headed hack for Queenstown.