PRE-WIRELESS DAVS

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1930, Page 17

PRE-WIRELESS DAVS

SHIPS THAT WENT ADRIFT HELPLESS WITHOUT RADIO. MISSING FOR LONG PERIODS. What might have been the fate of the Tahiti and her crew and passengers had it not been for the miracle of modern wireless it is not difficult to imagine. The history of the sea is full of tragic instances of ships that have been lost through similar mishaps and of ships that have drifted for weeks without any means of communicating their plight, depending purely on the chances of fate whether they were discovered by some passing vessel or left to the mercies or the first storni. Looking back to those pre-wireless days, says the New Zealand Herald; one finds the case of the Perthshire, which broke her tail shaft two days out from Sydney Heads., - She had left Sydney on ®April 26, 1899, for Bluff. For eight weeks the vessel was a mystery ship oh the face of the Tasman. She was sighted on three occasions by sailing ships and signals were exchanged, but owing to her size it was impossible for these small vessel to render any aid ami all they could do was to pass on. the signals when they arrived at their respective destinations.

Tugs and steamers were dispatched io look for her and for weeks on end they scoured the seas in vain. Then, eight weeks after the mishap occurred’, the Talnne found her and took her in tow to Sydney. Years afterwards,' the Perthshire was taken over by the British Government in W me ail( l c ? u ' verted into a dummy warship, in which role she “did her bit” to delude the Germans in the North' Sea during the height of the submarine campaign. •• -900 MH.ES ON ONE BLADE. Twenty-six years ago occurred the case of the Huddart-Parker steamer Anglian, which lost three propeller blades in the Tasman Sea while en route from 'Sydney to New Zealand and steamed 900 miles to Auckland on the one remaining blade. A somewhat similar case to that of the Tahiti occurred in October, 1901, when the Union Steamship Company’s steamer Monowai broke her propeller through striking an unknown submerged object while en route from Blufl to Melbourne. There being no wireless in those days, no means was available of communicating the vessel’s plight to the. shore and for several days the country was left in agonising doubt as to the fate of the overdue vessel. Ships were sent out to look for her and one of the search vessels, the Mbkoia, eventually sighted her and towed her into Dunedin. The Monowai had a second adventure in 1909, . when the steering gear failed and she was rescued under most difficult conditions. To-day her bones form part of a breakwater in Gisborne harbour. More sensational was the case of the steamer Waikato, which was adrift in the Indian Ocean for 103 days, crippled and cut off from all communication with the land of other shipping. Finally she was sighted by the tramp steamer Asloun and towed into Fremantle. Another rescue vessel, the barque Tacoma, was damaged while rendering assistance. MAROONED FOR A YEAR.

Nothing but the fact that she was equipped with wireless saved the crew of the New Zealand schooner Helen B. Sterling, which was abandoned on January 23, 1922, about 299 miles northest of Capo Maria van Diemen. Extensive leaking was started as a result of' the straining of the hull in a severe gale and the crew was unable to man the »pumps while the hurricane lasted. Very few sailing ships carried wireless eight years ago, but the Helen B. Sterling did and this fact enabled distress messages to lie sent out and the dispatch of aid in the shape of H.M.A.S. Melbourne, which was then nearing New Zealand on a visit. The warship was diverted to the assistance of the Helen B. Sterling and took off the crew of 16 and two women and a child by means of a breeches-buoy while the storm was at its height. The case was different with the British ' barque Dundonald, • which went ashore on Disappointment Island on a pitch dark night, with a heavy sea running. The survivors got ashore and experienced unbelievable hardships until they built a small boat and reached the main island, where they found one of ihe depots established by the New Zealand Government the use of castaways! When they "ultimately reached civilisation a whole year had elapsed and they had been given up as lost. NEWS DELAYED FOUR DAYS. Very near home was the wreck of the Wairarapa, which went ashore on the Great Barrier shortly after midnight on October 28, 1594. Those were the days before wireless was even dreamed of and because of the lonely and rugged nature of the spot where the wreck occurred, it wq.s pot until the survivors •made their- way overland to Port Fit'zroy that the disaster, was.,made .known to the outside world four days afterwards. .-

When the Jluddart-Parker steamer Elingamite was wrecked at. the Three Kings oiiiNovcmber 9, 1902, while on .the voyage from Sydney to Auckland, the majority of her passengers and crew took to the boats and rafts. One raft was adrift for four days before being picked up and one boat was never recovered. Altogther 45 lives were lost. Numerous vessels have put out from New Zealand ports, never. to be heard of again. In these days of wireless such disasters could scarcely occur as that of the. Union Company’s steamer Ohau, which left Greymouth for Dunedin in May, 1889, and never reached her destination. She was sighted two or three days after leaving Greymouth near Cape Campbell, but after that her fate was wrapped in mystery. The barque Constance Craig, which disappeared with all hands in 1997, was supposed to have foundered off the New Zealand coast and the barque Loch Lomond disappeared in the same way in 1908.

FIRST USE OF WIRELESS. Matters altered vastly when wireless came in to diminish perils at sea. It is of interest to recall at this moment the loss of the Union Company’s steamer Waitotara on June 10, 1917. The vessel caught fire in the Pacific while taking a cargo valued at £250,000 from England to Australia. The crew made valiant efforts to fight the flames but the holds were Boon burning like furnaces, and the men had to take to the boats. If it had

not been for wireless the chances are the boats would never had reached land, but, thanks to the appeals for help sent out by radio, a French vessel came on the scene in 24 hours and saved the entire crew. The first time that the use of wireless was practically demonstrated as a means of saving life and property at sea was on January 23, 1909, when the White Star liner Republic collided with the Florida in a dense fog off Nantucket Island. Six lives were lost but the story of the wreck gained fame through the important part which wireless telegraphy played in bringing other vessels to the rescue and thus preventing a worse disaster. The most striking instance was the case of the Titanic, which sank in the Atlantic on April. 14, 1912, with the loss. of. 1635 lives, after colliding with an iceberg off Cape Race, Newfoundland . The wireless operator, who was drowned, fearlessly stuck to his post, sending out wireless appeals for. help until the dynamos ceased and water invaded his room. As a result .steamers hurried to the rescue and picked up the survivors in the boats.