PLUCKY ACTION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3792, 7 August 1936, Page 11

PLUCKY ACTION

STEWARD’S BATTLE IN SEA. Disabled, with a hawser twisted around her propeller, the passenger steamer Pulganbar was in a bad way at Byron Bay, N.S.W., until Mr Fred Gough, a steward, went to the rescue. He battled for 12 hours, clinging to the rudder-post as the seas surged over him. Shipmates and officials of the North Coast S.N. Co. praise his plucky action. Mr Gough, who lives at Ramsgate, told about it when the Pulganbar returned to Sydney. The Pulganbar, carrying passengers from Sydney, arrived off the jetty at Byron Bay in heavy weather. A big sea had been running, but conditions seemed to be moderating. Lines were thrown to the jetty, but the seas caused a six-inch hawser to snap. The bow of the steamer swung around and hit the end of the jetty, which received slight damage. The broken line dropped astern and became tangled in the threshing propeller. Mr Gough volunteered to go over the side and attempt to free the steamer. Early in the afternoon he was lowered over the side in a bosun’s chair, and began his task. “I had to dive from the chair to the rudder post, and cling there,”

said Mr Gough. “The Pulganbar was lifting in the surge. At times the post, with me on it, would be 6ft. out of the water. Next moment I would be 6ft. under water.

“In the lulls, I would dive under the water, cling to the post with one hand, and struggled with the hawser with the other.

"On that first day I worked for five hours till dark; and during the afternoon sharks were biting the schnapper off the lines of fishermen 200 yards along the jetty. Next morning a staging was erected to help me. I worked from daylight till lunch time—another seven hours —and, well the hawser just came loose, and I cleared the propeller. And here we are!”