NEW MISSION VESSEL

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17456, 3 January 1931, Page 6

NEW MISSION VESSEL

STORM ON FIRST VOYAGE MAN WASHED OVERBOARD GALLAXT RESCUE EFFORTS A severe buffeting in a fierce gale in the Bay of Biscay, (luring which a. meanfieii' of the crew was lost overboard, was received by the London .Missionary Society's new auxiliary schooner John W illiams V, on her maiden voyage to the South Seas. Tile schooner, which reached Suva, a week ago. will shortly take up her new duties, with the Gilbert/ Islands as her base, replacing the' mission vessel .John Williams i\', which was sold recently after 30 years of mission work. Tint new vessel is a. three-masted auxiliary schooner of 250 tons displacement, 125 ft. long and’ with a beam of 25ft. She was built by the; Grangemouth Dockyard Co. on the Firth of Forth at a. cost of £15,000, and was! launched in .May of this year, when site was christened by having a- bottle of coconut milk smashed on her bo\vs. She called at. 20 ports around the coasts of Great' Britain and it is estimated that she was visited by about 100,COO people. Tint, schooner finally left for the South Seas early in October under tiie command of Captain T. Hope-Evans. When crossing the Bay of Biscay she ran into heavy weather and in a south-west squall a seaman, Alex Samuels, a native of Glasgow, was sent forward’ with two others to make the outer jib fast. They' were clinging to the bowsprit, endeavoring to secure the down-hauled jib, when a huge sea buried them, and Samuels was washed away. The boatswain promptly threw a. lifebuoy overboard 1 , but the struggling man, who was impeded by his scaboots and oilskin coat, was unable to reach it. COOK DIVES TO RESCUE The cook, George Jenkins, without hesitation, dived over the side of the ship and tried to pilot the lifebuoy to the distressed seaman. Meanwhile a. lifeboat was put over the side and although she was badly crushed against the side of the vessel four men set out in her to the rescue. They soon had to give up this hazardous enter prise as the lifeboat was quickly awash through leakage, and lliev relumed to the' .John Williams. While tl to lifeboat crew was struggling against the mountainous seas the cook was wasrred back aboard 1 lie schooner and Samuels disappeared from sight. An attempt was made to hoist the lifeboat aboard the schooner, but it was so badly smashed that it was abandoned. The John Williams V reached Suva, on December 23, after a voyage of 84 days', and her crew was paid olf. Captain Mope-Evans will remain in charge of tho schooner and Mr. Tom Bowling, who was mate of the John Williams TV, will join the new vessel in tho samo capacity. Tho adiooner will be manned by a crew of Gilbert Islanders. PERPETUATING A NAME

It was on tiie 'beads at Errornanga in tho New Hebrides in 1839 that the gallant missionary John Williams met his death at the hands of natives. In each successive ship built the London Missionary Society has perpetuated his name. Tho first, mission schooner of that name was wrecked on Niue Island in 1867, and tho wreck was bought by “Bully” Hayes, the notorious pirate of ■tho Pacific at that period. His idea was to refloat the vessel but he could not get tho natives to assist him, and he had to abandon her.

When the John Williams IV began running 30 years ago she was tho only real link connecting the lonely mission stations in tho Gilbert Islands with civilisation. Once every six months she took stores to the missions, carried the irhito missioners around the islands to enable them to supervise the work of tho native pastors, and then returned to (Sydney, frequently with a thank-offering from the natives in the form of a part cargo of copra. Butaritari, in the Gilbert Islands, is now a port of call by occasional 1 cargo vessels, and the new auxiliary schooner will confine her operations to cruising among the islands of the group,—Auckland Herald.