A STEAMER DISABLED.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LV, Issue 8582, 16 October 1906, Page 6

A STEAMER DISABLED.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

Dunedin, Last Night

Intimation was received from the Heads this morning that a sailing vessel, presumably disabled, was making for the Harbour. The tug Plucky proceeded outside with Pilot McDonald, when it was found that the vessel was not herself in trouble, but was bringing ashore a shipwrecked crew. The vessel proved to be tho barque Ravenscourt, and she had on board the officers and crew of the steamer Port Stephen, which had been abandoned. Captain Beaumont, representing the Mariue Department, went to Port Chalmers, and made arrangements for bringing the officers and crew to Dunedin.

Captain Jolly supplied the following out-line:-"My ship, the Port Stephen, left Dunedin on Thursday, September 27th, and sailed from Oamaru on the following Monday (October Islj. Oil Wednesday, October 3rd, we met bad weather, and the tail shaft broke. We drifted very fast, being quite helpless. Five days afterwards, when the Ravenscourt, which had been driven out of her course by the same weather, hove in sight, and took all tho steamer's company on board, the transference being made in our own boats. There were 33 of us altogether. All are quite safe and sound." Warren, the chief engineer of the Port Stephen, says that it would have taken another fortnight to complete the work of repairing the broken shaft. The vessel had proceeded 100 miles after passing through Foveaus Strait. In the five days she drifted 229 miles south, and tho weather was turning cold. It* she had continued at the same rate she would have been among the ice before the repairs were completed.