A DERELICT PICKED UP IN MIDOCEAN.

Otago Witness, Issue 2086, 15 February 1894, Page 20

A DERELICT PICKED UP IN MIDOCEAN.

It is not often that a derelict is picked up in mid-ocean and towed to a haven of safety. But such a feat was accomplished by the steamer Atlantic, which arrived in Port Jackson on the 27th ult. The Atlantic, it appears, was ploughing her way through the North Atlantic, when on the Ist of October, a derelict was sighted. The weather was fine at the time, and the Atlantic bore down to the wreck. Captain Young went on board and made a careful examination. There were no signs of life on board the derelict, which proved to be the Catherine, a wholesome-looking Nova Scotian-built vessel, hailing from Yarmouth, United States. She was laden with pitch pine, and almost water-logged. Such a prize, valued by the captain of the Atlantic to between £10,000 and £12,000, was considered worth salving, and after a hurried consultation on the steamer, it was decided to take the derelict into St. Vincent, of the Cape de Verde Group, then distant some 1200 miles. Three men were accordingly put on board to steer the derelict, and a stout towline was soon run out, and the Atlantic started ahead with the Catherine in tow, Head winds and adverse currents made the tow a heavy one, but, nothing daunted, Captain Young and his plucky crew hung on to the wreck, and after a period of 14 days had the satisfaction of safely anchoring the prize in the harbour of St. Vincent. Inquiries made through Lloyd's showed that the Catherine, a barque of 834 tons, built at Digby, Nova Scotia ; by her owner, Mr W. D. Lovitt, and measuring 176 ft in length, with a beam of 35ft and depth of 18ft, was bound from Pensacola to Rio Janeiro, and -was abandoned, leaky in August, the crew being rescued by the steamer Maria Christina and landed safely. The Catherine had drifted 60 to 60 miles to the westward from the position where she was abandoned She was fallen in with by the Atlantic in lat* 26.18 N., long. 44.9 W. A message to Lloyd's' dated St. Vincent, October 24, says :— " Catherine and cargo surveyed, and recommended to be sold Surveyors have examined the vessel. Her bottom is badly injured, and there are other injuries. It is a hopeless case."