SWEPT BY CYCLONE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19784, 7 March 1927, Page 2

SWEPT BY CYCLONE

OIL TANKER’S FIGHT ANXIOUS TIME FOB CREW Captain Hume, master of the British Imperial Company’s oil tanker Murex, on the arrival of the vessel at Newcastle, New South Wales, from Singapore recently, told of the experiences of the steamer in the Cyclone off the Queensland coast last week. On February 9, the Murex was a few mile off Cairns when he received a wireless message from Brisbane that a cyclone was sweeping northwards. At the time, he said, there was scarcely a breath of wind, while the sea was as smooth as glass. About an hour later a light south-easterly breeze sprang up, which, by midnight, was blowing a raging hurricane. As the night wore on the fury of the wind increased, while mountainous seas were sweeping the vessel from stem to stern. Realising that it was hopeless to attempt to make any headway against the cyclone, Captain Hume said he ordered both anchors to be dropped in an endeavour to hold the vessel’s position. When dawn broke, and he was able, during tn intermission in the rain squalls, to take a bearing, he found that the Murex had been driven several miles northward. Early on the following afternoon the wind dropped, and for about two hours the Murex was able to make a little headway against the mountainous seas. Shortly before dusk, Captain Hume continued, the wind sprang up from the south-south-east, and an hour later the Murex was again in the grip of the cyclone, which, this time, was attacking from the north. For over 32 hours he scarcely left the bridge. The weather glass showed a reading of 28.35. “It was an anxious time for all of as,” Captain Hume .concluded, “and we are lucky to have come through it so little the worse for our experience.”