EFFECT OF A SET OR CURRENT IN COOK STRAIT PASSAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18763, 18 May 1929, Page 23 (Supplement)

EFFECT OF A SET OR CURRENT IN COOK STRAIT PASSAGE.

(BY ENGINEER.) VI. On picking up the morning paper one is often struck at the claim made at some nautical inquiry, on behalf of maybe the captain or other officer concerned, that an abnormal set or current was the cause of the vessel being in a certain position, although what was apparently a safe course had been set at the outset. I have also heard it said by people ashore that the current or set is sometimes worked up on behalf of those who are affected. Many years ago I was much of the same opinion myself, until one night the effect of an unknown current or set was demonstrated to me by the skipper (a man with a lifetime’s experience on the treacherous coast of New Zealand). This was done as the result of a remark made to me one evening, when 1 spoke about the supposed effect of a current on a ship at sea. We were bound from Greymouth to New Plymouth, and were off Cape Farewell the night I speak of, just at tea time, when the skipper, in answer to my remark said: “We are crossing the western entrance to Cook Strait to-night, and I will try and convince you of the real effect of a set, as you are completely wrong in your idea.” He then rose from the table and said: “Don’t forget to see me at about eight o’clock, when we will set a course for Cape Egmont, and you are to see it done.” He then laughingly went up the companion. At eight o’clock I went along to the old man’s cabin, and he carefully laid off a course which would bring us ten miles to the westward of the Cape Egmont light, when we should pick it up in the early morning. I then went on to the bridge with the old man, and saw him enter the course in the bridge book. He then gave the course to the officer on watch, and said to him: “Call me and the engineer, when you ri.se the Egmont light.” I stayed yarning with him for some time, and then said “good night,” and went to bed I mu.'t here say that the night was hne and clear, and the sea fairly cairn ;-mi there was nothing to apparently make a set from west to east. At sometime after 4 a m. I was call ed and went on deck to find the skipper waiting for me; I went up on the bridge with him, and there was the Egmont light showing fully ten

miles on our port bow instead of on our starboard bow, thus placing the ship on quite a dangerous course il held to. Needless to say the skippei soon altered his course, and made all O.K. Now, what if there had been a fog or misty weather that night? The ship was fully twenty miles out of position on a course carefully laid off by chart and compass. I thanked the skipper for his demonstration, and from that day till now I have had a healthy respect for any claim of an abnormal set or current. On arrival at New Plymouth late that afternoon we learnt that the ocean steamer Ventnor, bound from the south, had ripped her bottom out in the vicinity of Cape Egmont the night before the skipper had demonstrated the effect of a set to me. Was the Ventnor lost through not allowing for this very set? Some of my readers might remember that the loss of the Ventnor caused quite a talk, as she was carrying a cargo of Chinamen’s bones to China, the home of their ancestors. The body of that wealthy Chinaman of Dunedin, Sue Hoy, was lost with this ship.