COMMANDER WORSLEY

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18229, 13 November 1924, Page 12

COMMANDER WORSLEY

HOW HE SAVED HIS CREW

(fHOM or?. OWN" COUHESPONDKKT.)

LONDON, October 7

One lias never to wait very long before hearing of Pomo new adventure' in which Commander Frank Worsley is the centra! figure. Between official Antarctic expeditions he seems to have a preference for ships of doubtful seaworthiness. Before going on the last Shac'kleton Expedition he was engaged in sailing a cockle-shell of a vessel up to Iceland and back. Anions; other things, on one occasion he had to put a chain round the hull of the vessel and attach the two ends to the mast. This was to lire vent the mast from being blown overboard. On that occasion he managed to get the tiny vessel back to safety after a very tempestuous passage. For some months he has been away from London. Probably only a few friends knew of his whereabouts. But now it trauspires he lias been sailing the four-masted schooner Kathleen Annie (332 tons) between Bremen and Newfoundland.

One night recently he left Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands, for Newfoundland, but immediately encountered a fierce gale. The vessel, in tho darkness, with the seas running, mountains high, struck on the Green Holms, a low-lying portion of land off Eday Island, in the Orkney groups and began to break up. Realising the ship's plight and 1 the peril of his crew, Commander Worsley* dropped from the bowsprit into the raging sea with a line which he made fast ashore. He then struggled back to the ship, and by means of tho rope the whole crew gained the shore in safety. ..The ship became a total wreck. The commander and his men were exposed to the gale and torrents of rain for eight hours, and were then taken off by the steamer St. Magnus, and to Kirkwall. In speaking of the wreck Commander Worsley said that when the ship struck it was so dark that he could see nothing. He ran a line ashore because lie was afraid the ship would go to pieces. "I ordered the men one by one to jump for the rope," he added, "and haul themselves up the rocks. The orders to jump were given at moments when I judged that the breakers had receded to their maximum, and I also allowed for the natural momentary hesitation to make the leap. By the time each man was in the wafer he had the assistance of the oncoming waives to bear him shorewards. One man, in his excitement, grasped the wrong rope. It almost cost him his life, but some of the crew already ashore, ran into the water and I 'seized him. 1 '

, The schooner, it appears, which is owned by a London firm, called at Kirkwill for repairs. She was carrying a cargo of crude spirit.