ISLAND WRECK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3862, 20 March 1928, Page 81

ISLAND WRECK.

THE OCEAN TRANSPORT.

(From Our Own Correspondent) nm . • , SYDNEY, March 2. he stories told by the survivors of the Ocean Transport, which arrived at NewK The o Unda m make thrilli,,g rcad - TH t ? Transport was wrecked at Ocean Island, and the thirty-three men which comprised the crew only narrowly escaped with their lives. Thcv attriutc their safety to the remarkable courage of a number of kanakas, who put out from the shore in the dark, manipulated their boats through a boiling surf, and took a line from the ship to a buoy. Every member of the crew was saved, despite the strange hoodoo which some ot them maintain followed the ve-sel The Ocean Transport left England last year for a long tramp around the world. At Honolulu Captain Hogan -came seriously ill, and had to be taken to hospital. A few weeks later several of the crew were down with dysentery, and on* o. them, a boy, died, and was buried at sea on January 12. In charge of the first mate, Mr Grigg, the Ocean Transport steamed around Ocean Island for twelve days waiting for a berth. The sea was smooth, but as soon as she reached a buoy and tied up a hurricane came from the west, and the waves threatened to envelop the ship. The master, finding the place unsafe., decided to put to sea. The vessel was in light trim, and when she left her mooring she was tossed about, a plaything of the terrific gale, for nearly an hour. The captain and the crew strained every nerve to get the ship into deep water, but it was of no use. She refused to answer the rudder, xvas caught by an unusually big sea, and swept stem first on to a reef. A following sea turned her broadside on. She commenced to leak, and listed badly. That happened soon after noon on January 30, and by 6 n.m. the water was so deep in the engine room that an explosion was feared. In order to open one of the scape valves, the engineer had to wade waist deep in water. It was dark when orders to leave the ship were given. Then commenced an adventure which the survivors will never forget. To reach a buoy with a rope was an impossibility. and the crew was prepared for the worst when several crews of kanakas, in surfing shells, braved the tremendous seas and came alongside. Those men carried the ropes to the buoys. One of the lifeboats of the wrecked steamer was lowered, but it was smashed to pieces as soon as it touched the water. The waves at the time were breaking over the wreck and pouring down the funnel. Eventually, a boat containing portion if the crew set out in the dark for the shore. Hand over hand the men pulled themselves along the rope laid by the natives. At the end of a reef they were forced to wait until a wave lifted them and carried them inshore.

The second boat containing <he remainder of the crew landed in the same way, but the belongings of the crew, together with the ship’s pets, were left on board the stricken vessel. Several times the wreck moved and threatened to slip into deep water, but somehow held on till daylight, when a volunteer crew, under the second officer, went back and salvaged the belongings, three cats, and a pet chicken.

Nine days after the wreck the Pacific Transport came over from Nauru, and the survivors joined her and sailed for Australia. One man, S. Stanbrecze, who stowed away on the Ocean Transport at Honolulu, had more thrills than he expected. First he thought that the ship was going to America, and when he found that she was bound for the Islands he came up on deck and gave himself up. He was put to work in the stokehole, was in the wreck, and is now in Newcastle with the shipwrecked crew wondering what is going to happen to him next.