BATTERED BY GALE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20234, 19 February 1934, Page 5

BATTERED BY GALE.

Jacob Ruppert’s Eventful Voyage. RETURN FROM THE ICE. Per Press Association. DUNEDIN, February 18. Bearing unmistakable signs of her struggles with the - Antarctic ice and a heavy gale which was encountered on her return voyage to New Zealand, the Byrd expedition ship Jacob Ruppert arrived at Port Chalmers at 11.30 today. Quite apart from a seventy-mile-an-hour gale in which the Jacob Ruppert laboured for four days shortly after clearing the ice, the return trip to Dunedin was by no means an uneventful one, as, for the greater part of the thirteen-day passage, Captain Verliger was unable to take part in the working of the ship on account of acute illness. Dr Guy O. Shirey, who w'as himself returning from Little America on account of ill-health, attended the captain night and day and eventually succeeded in pulling him through. * Speaking of the ship’s experiences in the ice Captain Verliger said he had been extremely favourably impress ;d with the ship’s qualifications for such an undertaking. Of Admiral Byrd’s plans for his long winter occupation of Little America, Captain Verliger could supply no information, as the leader of the expedition had not been in the habit of taking other members into his confidence as to the projected activities of the party. The Jacob Ruppert will remain in Otago Harbour for the next ten months, after which she will return to Little America to pick up the members of the expedition.