RAGING STORM.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20206, 17 January 1934, Page 1

RAGING STORM.

British Coasts Battered by Rough Seas. British Official Wireless. RUGBY, January 15. The southern half of England was swept by a severe gale during Saturday night and early yesterday morning, one gust reaching a velocity of 82 miles an hour. Another gust reaching 77 miles an hour was registered. Heavy and welcome rain accompanied the storm. Owing to the severity of the gale in the Straits the morning services between Ostend and Dover were cancelled, as was the service between New haven and Dieppe. Other boats on Channel services had a bad crossing. Heavy seas were running off Portsmouth and it was considered inadvisable to take H.M.S. Nelson through the narrow entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, her departure to join the Home Fleet being postponed. She is in readiness to sail, no damage having been received as a result of going aground on a sandbank. About 300 ratings of the battleship Rodney were unable to return to their ship in Plymouth Sound, on Saturday night, owing to the seas. The Rodney will now sail from Plymouth this evening. Lifeboat Rescues. The storm resulted in relatively little damage on land and sea, but lifeboats were out in several places round the coast. Four persons were rescued off the Isle of Wight from the schooner-yacht Rover, by the lifeboat at Plymouth. The lifeboat also spent the night at sea searching for a vessel reported to be in distress, but returned without any result, although she was aided bv searchlights from the Rodney. While engaged in the search two members of the lifeboat’s crew were washed overboard, but were hauled back. The small Danish steamer Polly was towed into harbour at Aberdeen after breaking her rudder in the North Sea. Minor damage was done on land. Royal Car Escapes. As the Royal car, in which the King, the Duke and Duchess of York, Princess Elizabeth and the Prime Minister drove from Sandringham, drew up at Sandringham Church yesterday morning, a branch of a tree was blown down on to the road a few 3-ards behind the car. The severe gales during the past fortnight had prevented the relief of the three keepers, one of whom was injured, from the lonely Dhu Hearteach lighthouse, fifteen miles off the western coast of Scotland. To-day the northern lighthouse relief ship Hesperus succeeded in reaching the lighthouse and took off the marooned men. The injured keeper was conveyed to Oban Hospital. His colleagues had been tending him on medical instructions wirelessed to the lighthouse.