THE NERINA.

NZ Truth, Issue 118, 21 September 1907, Page 8

THE NERINA.

In the oase of the Sally, 'the crew were outside the capsized hull ; m that .of the Nerina they were inside !

The Norma, m November, 1840, was sixteen days out. from Dunkirk, hound for Marseilles, with a cargo of oil and canvas, when £•*> was hove-to m a heavy gale about 30 miles south of the Scilly Islands, and, after buffeting ahout for four**hours, suddenly broached-to and" capsized. She was commanded by Captain Everard|. who had with him, as cabin-fcoy, his nephew Nicholas —a lad of fourteen— and a crew of live ordinary seamen. When the disaster occurred all were below except the helmsman, and he seems to have been at once swept overboard. The captain, mate, and boy were m the cabin, and tlie three men m the forecastle.. . ■> When -they found the . brie, turning turtle the men forward rushed downwards, or rather upwards to the kelson. Two of them succeeded m keeping their heads above water, but the third got entangled among

A COIL OF ROPES, and was drowned. The . cargo had been shifted by the shock., and dropped on to the deck ; and up along thc ship's bottom- there was left an empty space «m which the imprisoned air kept back the water.

In the cabin the mate tore down the hatch m the deck, scrambled into tlie lazaretto, and rolled the casks away that were there stored. The . captain caught the boy m his arms, helped him up, and then, as the water came rushing iti|, , followed him through the hatchway. They were thus m the same position against the kelson as the men were, and m about an hour's time they were joined hy the crew, who. hearing their voices, crept aft to them. So shallow was the air space, that they had to sit up to their necks m water. As they could not sit upright they had to take it m turns to stretch, themselves along the. casks with their bGdies squeezed close to the vessel's timbers. And all the time the. ship labored and rolled and threatened to swing over and founder. Tlie nigilit passed and tlie morning came, and they saw the light streaking down into the sea and reflected upwards to them through the cabin skylight and the • OPEX LAZARETTO HATCH, The day and night of Tuesday the 17th, and of Wednesday, the 18th, passed without "food, without relief, and almost without hope. They endeavored to assuage the pangs of hunger by, chewing the hark stripped off from thi hoops of the Casks. Wiant of fresh air threatened them 'with* deaith by.suiffioQatdon. The mate worked almost incessantly for two days and a night m trying witli his knife (o cut a hole through the hull. Happily the knife broke before he had succeeded m accomplishing his object, the result off which must have proved fatal, as the confined *air alone kept the vessel ii a 'buo7c.ni; state

In the af teres on of ihe.. Wednesday tbe wreck was fallen m. with by a couple of pilot-boats, who took it m tow- for some time, ignorant, of course, that any living thing., was within it. The ropes', however, broke ere night closed m, and the weather looking ugly they sheered off and lof b it to its fate. Their interference was important, for they towed it into the set of the current on to the islands, and' when tbey left it with, its keel barely showing above water it was icing slowly hut surely Carried towards St. Mary's. . During the Wednesday night the Nerina suddenly struck ahd reeled. Then she struck again, and seemed to lit)

GOING TO PIECES, Then she struck a third time, and the alter part dropped fto much m thc water that two men had to Creep towards the bow* and m attempting to do so one Of them dropped through the hatch into the Cabim - ahd was drowned. Finding the vessel ashore and tlie water ebbing, the other man soon itftfcyw&ifls entered' the C9A_'in,f fend