STEERING IN A FOG.

Otago Witness, Issue 1987, 24 March 1892, Page 33

STEERING IN A FOG.

A RECORD OF ACCIDENTS,

Mr H. M, Jervis contributes the following interesting article to the New Zealand Herald : —

The going on shore of the Elginshire is another instance out of the numerous casualties of steamers heading dead on shore in fogs. Inquests serve very little beyond fixing blame on some unfortunate officer in charge of the deck, notwithstanding that it may appear the engines were slowed and the proper compass course was being pursued. Very seldom are solved mysterious wrecks in " thick weathoi 1 ," unaccounted for by currents or inaccurate steering. In the majority of oases the steamer has been driven stem on shoro, sovoral points out of her proper course, compasses chiefly relied upon, In illustration of this, a few of the destroyed steamers on these coasts may be referred to.

The s.s. William Denny was steering correctly by the compass, in a fog or haze, but instead of rounding afar off the North Cape, she was driven on to the shore in nearly an opposite direction to the compass course. The captain succeeded in backing off to a good offing/and then, supposing he was giving the Capo a wide berth, when, to his amazement, he drove the steamer a second time into the neighbouring locality, but on this occasion crashing in her fore compartment upon the rocks.

The White Swan, with all the New Zealand archives on board, and also the worthy rej)resentatives of the north, en route to the " Empire City," to establish a new seat of Government, under the memorable majority of one, is another instance. The steamer after leaving the Kidnappers took a course west-by-north instead of south, and ran upon the beach stem on. After this disaster the s.s. Lord Worsley (when conveying three of our esteemed members of the House, on their return home from the same session) tore full speed upon the rocks at Cape Egmont, with proper course indicated by her compasses, during a fog. Afterwards the same company's new steamship Victoria [? Victory], after leaving Cape Saunders in a haze, or evening

fog, pursued the proper south-west course, by compass, for the Bluff, but before tea was over the ship was driven in a north-west direction stem on to the beach, where, it may bo remarked, she became some time after a wreck, during the process of being towed through a dug-out passage, from a shift of wind from the south-east, a similar occurrence to that of the William Denny on the occasion of her being floated, and under the operations of the same man, W. Scott. On the coast of New South Wales, the s.s. Chimborazo sighted Sydney Heads at early morning, and soon afterwards steamed through smooth water into a fog, but in a short time the ship was steered to the shore, due west of her northern course.

The s.s. Tararua, on her last disastrous voyage, south, in similar " thick weather" to that in which she deviated from her course to destruction, experienced alarming disarrangement to her compasses. Mr Martin, a passenger from Napier to Wellington, was (unusual with a passenger) watching both binnacle and standard compasses, and observed them to bo unsteady. The helmsman seeing him take an interest in them, remarked "We can't keep her right at all ; compasses jump about like a galvanic machine."

The s.s. Hawcra, outside Wellington Heads, m foggy weather, was led, as if by Ariel, from shore to rock, close shaving them by compass and sounding indications. The captain could only account for getting into those positions when the weather cleared "by the strong tide setting the vessel up the straits, as hitherto the course steered had usually brought her to the eastward ! " This may serve as an example of tho opinions adopted to account for the numerous perplexities in which officers of coast steamers find themselves in fogs. If they were to be candidly questioned, hundreds of "touch-and-go" trips in thick weather could be elicited where the compass was found to be perfectly useless to navigate by independently of unusual currents.

Of late years the scientific investigations of electricians have manifestly shown that atmospheric conditions arising out— of the ■positive^ state of the earth, as developed often in foggy exhalations, throw polar magnetism into confusion. Various molecular composition, metallic and other taints in food matter, arise from such. The interesting discoveries of Professors Crooks, Tyndal, and other scientists, of magnetic irregularities in particular along-shore fogs, and their electrical causes, show the necessity of certain points of negative and positive conditions of the atmosphere being items of nautical knowledge. Fogs arise from a diversity of causes, and have a corresponding diversity of nature;, a driving fog is highly electric, and in aIL instances fogs cause particles, or molecules of matter, which are found to disarrangepolarity of magnetism, particularly in certain; emanations from highly metalliferous shores. Captain Harris, off the coast of Malabar, at 10 o'clock on a calm night, saw on the horizon, ahuge mass of urbulous matter approaching thesteamer in waves of light, with great rapidity, till the ship was completely surrounded with one great mass of undulating light. "This light," he reports, "could not have been produced without the agency of electro-magnetic currents, exercising their exciting influence upon some particles of matter afloat in the atmosphere, and one thing I wish to point out is that, whilst the ship was stopped, and the light some distance away, nothing was discernable in the water, but so soon as the light reached the ship a number of luminous patches presented themselves, and as these wero equally as motionless as the ship at the time, it is only natural to assume that they existed, and were actually in our vicinity before the light reached us, only they were not made visible till they became the transmitting media for the electro-magnetic currents." This quotation may serve to explain one of the phases of electro-magnetic action that navigators are subject to, and render it dangerous for coasters to depend upon compass course when fogs, haze, or electrometer should indicate a negative state of the atmosphere, with the attendant eccentricities or disarrangement of polar influence upon thc-magnet. In such cases, especially upon metalline coasts, such as these of New Zealand, the navigation by compass should be immediately abandoned.

The sum of Ll6O has been collected at Wellington for the athletic team. The New Zealand Shipping Company granted a considerable reduction in the faros.