BATTERED BY GAĹE

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1929, Page 11

BATTERED BY GAĹE

SCOW LIMPS INTO PORT. Auckland, June 11.. With her fore-topmast and bowsprit broken off, her mainsail torn to ribbons and her top-gear in a general tangle, the schooner-rigged scow Seagull ca “® to anchor on the western side of Browns Island at about three o’clock, this morning after a severe buffeting in a northwesterly storm which swept Hauraki Gulf last night. The Seagull was bringin° r a cargo of sand to Auckland fiom , Whangapoua, near Mercury Bay. Early this afternoon a tug was sent to tow her up the harbour. The Seagull bore evidence of the oad time the four members of her ships company had come through. _ ‘ We weie on our way from Whangapoua, with a load of sand \ last night,” eaid the skipper, “when we were struck by th© °ale. We were in the open between Cape Colville and Auckland, and at, about nine o’clock our fore-topmast carried away; bowsprit went too, our mainsail was torn to shreds, and th© top gear is in a mess.” From what could be further gathered it seemed that after the crash cam© at about nine o’clock the crew must have had a particularly strenuous time in furling th© sails, gathering up the wrecked gear, and rigging whatever emergency sail it was that enabled them to beat it until the vessel got on the harbour side of Brown’s Island. “It was the severest night I have ever been and I have been at sea for nearly thirty years,” said Cap* tain Lang on arriving in Auckland, tonight. • “It would have been all right if the night had been clear, but everything was obscured. It was more than a gale that hit us. . It was a howling hurricane. Almost immediately the jib boom went, the main stay taking the fore topmast with it. Seas broke over us from every direction, and once I was swept off my feet among the steering chains. ’ The mainsail was soon blown to ribbons. Tt was impossible to control her, and fore and aft wa were up to our waists in water. Wa put up two blue lights to a trawler for assistance, but evidently she, did not notice them. The gale continued for gibout twenty minutes, and there was not a sign of. a light anywhere. After that the weather cleared, al-." though, the seas were very heavy, but when things were secured we managed; to get the ship before the wind. Th© wind went round to the north-west, otherwise goodness knows where we would have ended up.” “It was not a gale, it was a cyclone,” said,.a.-,member of the crew. “The noise when it./hit .us was terrific, and sb© just wallowed in the seas.. When things cleared': we found we were still right on our ■ course.” • Another member of the crew spoke of th© work done by a seaman named Kaye.G'During the height of the galei whert the jib boom was carried away he the side before the captain knew, hA had gone. He was stripped, and : the seas were going right over him, but he managed to secure the jib boom, and lit-'-was hauled into the side. At, another stage, too, he went up the fore-: mast jaiid attended to the broken top* mast,'Entirely regardless of the danger to which he was exposed. The pump© were kept ready f° r action, but it was not necessary to use them. Th©.;S(eagull is one of the biggest o£ the scows which run out of Auckland; Built here dn. 1'905, she is of 25 tons register, is 92ft in length, and 27ft ill beam,,...,, ...