UNDERCURRENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume 111, Issue 18640, 19 May 1932, Page 6

UNDERCURRENTS.

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE (By “ Gleaner.") J A MYSTERY OF THE SEA. A cablegram on Saturday announces the fact that heavy seas had brought in a wreck, keel upwards, at St. Helena Bay, 80 mile.s to the westward of Capetown. The wreckage ,\vas presumed to be that of a large sailing vessed, and fragments showed that the wood had been badly scorched. • • • • No conjecture as to the name of the vessel was made in the wire. “Gleaner” cannot help feeling that the remains may be part of the Danish auxiliary training barque Kobenhavn, which \vas reported missing late in 1928. The Kobenhavn (anglice, Copenhagen), which was used as a training ship for mercantile marine apprentices, left Buenos Aires for Australia and has not since been “spoken." Some of the inhabitants of Tristan Da Cunha months later reported having seen a partially dismasted black flve-masted barque drifting towards the death-trap rooks of Inaccessible Island, one Of the Tristan group. ;One of the sudden fogs which are common in those lonely Islands came do\vn and obliterated the view for some hours, and when next morning a searoh was made there was no sign of the mystery .ship. J " v • • .» •

Now the only communication the inhabitants of Tristan Da Cunha have with the outside world is when an occasional .mah-o’-\var or merchant ship nfakes a special yisit or a passing call—once a year at the outside. The islanders have no wireless or cables. They did not, therefore, know .that the Kobenhavn had left Buenos Aires or was .expected anywhere jp their vicinity. A sailing vessel pn a -voyage from Buenos Aires to Australia would naturally pass near their islands in taking advantage of the prevailing winds and currents, for running the “easting down.” Added t.o this, the Kobenhavn was painted black, or at any rate when “Gleaner” last saw h,er off Fernando de Noronha, not long before her disappearance, and was the only live-masted barque afloati Thus it seems to him more than likely that the vessel the islanders saw was the missing training ship.

All sorts of theories have been advanced to aocount for her loss. The vessel was fitted with an auxiliary engine and wireless. “Gleaner’s" opinion is that she was overwhelmed in a sudden storm which dismasted her and carried away her wireless before a message could b.e sent out. An alternative is that there was an explosion In the engine room which carried away the main and mizzen masts and started the barque’s hull. Overwhelmed and waterlogged by the storm, .or through the explosion weakening her hull, she may have drifted helplessly with her crew washed overboard or slowly starved to death.

A derelict off Tristan da Gunha would in the natural course of events drift towards the Cape of Good Hope. From the islands half w?y to the Cape the west wind drift and the Gape Horn .current tray.el as one, there to branch off, the wind drift to continue to the eastward, the current turning northward towards the Cape, later to merge into the Bongualla current up the West Coast of Africa. A derelict near the coast would be prevented from drifting to the eastward through the Cape Agulhas current, which describes a parabola from east to west near the coast, then west to east at sea off the south-,east extremity of Africa, thus presenting the main for.ee against the Cape Horn ourrent, ' Thus a derelict drifting from Tristan da Cupha would most probably meet the first land not far to me westward of Capetown.

Another thing to strengthen “Gleaner’s” argument is the fact that there are so few sailing vessels nowadays that none of any size except the Kobenhavn has been reported ' “missing” for a number of years. Of course the wreckage found near Capetown might have risen from the bed pf the sea In the vicinity, a relic wrenohed adrift from some age-long wreck, or part of a derelict which had wandered aimlessly, the plaything 0 1 deep waters, for many years.

THE DERELICT JEANETTE. saw one such derelict twice in the Atlantic. It was the hull of the Newfoundland schooner Jeanette, keel up. She had turned turtle months before off one of the West Indian islands. The first time he saw her was off Newfoundland, and a ghostly sight’ she presented. It was moonlight at the time and the eerie light played all sorts of tricks with the slime and weed-covered wanderer, the phosphorus glowing from minute creatures among the semi-putrid growth adding to the creepiness. Next lime he saw her was in the Mexican Gulf when, in the grip of the Gulf Stream, she had recommenced her journey north.

It may be queried how it was possible to tell her again. Weil,. the U.S. Hydrographic Bureau, with the assistance of merchant and naval vessels, issues monthly current, wind, weather and iceberg charts of various seas, including the North Atlantic. When the master of a merchantman sights a derelict or an iceberg he is supposed to immediately inform the bureau, so that a vessel of the Ice Patrol, which is under the American (lag and control although subscribed to internationally, can be despatched to attempt to destroy Iho iceberg if in the road of commerce, or to blow up the derelict. Icebergs travel more or less in a set limit and route and are thus comparatively easily tracked down, but derelicts are somewhat more evasive. On this account in abandoned vessel may wander for years with only its approximate posiiun known, or disappear altogether for a time. On the monthly charts their positions, descriptions and supposed courses are plotted through liipmasters' reports from the day of heir first sighting to the day of their destruction or disappearance, after whiph they are dropped from the chart. This information is supplied not only to give an approximate indication where danger lies, but to aid our knowledge of tlie action of current* and winds.