"SHIVER ME TIMBERS!"

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 16170, 5 July 1923, Page 6

"SHIVER ME TIMBERS!"

NGATORO IN A GALE.

.SYDNEY, June 25.—80 serious did the position of the steamer Ngatoro become during yesterday's gale that the vessel was Juiced (.0 seek tho shelter of Sydney harbor. Tim members of the crew consider themselves fortunate to bo safe. They declare that the vessel lu"t something which made her shudder, and caused damage in the engine-room. The- Ngatoro left Brisbane at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning on a voyage to Hobart. On Monday morning the first of the gale was encountered. It was a head wind, against which the vessel could make Utile headway. Later in tile day the wind and sea increased in fury. Mountainous waves poured over the fo'e'sle and rushed along the decks. ltope.s and other movable objects were washed overboard. "It was foolish to go on to tho deck that night," declared one of the crew, when the vessel was safely moored at Darling harbor to-day. "One man did so and only for a rope hanging about him ho would have been lost overboard. As it was ho was half-drowned while lying in the scupper.

"We would not have minded the storm so much," continued tho speaker, "had it not been for the seas coming into the fo'e'sle. Even our tobacco was saturated. O'ur bunks were simply a waih.

"We were all standing in a'group—tho conversation was mostly on Toohey's wins—when the ship seemed to point her bows straight up to the sky. "We all fell together against the further bulwarks. She seemed to stay like that for five minutes. Suddenly her bows dipped and then hor propeller was whirring in space. "Down sho slid again, and bang! She seemed to hit bottom. I believe the shock was felt amidships by the cook. Anyhow that bump burst the main steampipe and caused us to run for shelter.

"Yes," ho concluded, "we are lucky to be here safe and sound." An officer declared that tho shock was caused by an extra huge wave.