LOG BOOK GLEANINGS

Evening Star, Issue 23373, 16 September 1939, Page 8

LOG BOOK GLEANINGS

LAST INDIAMAN FAREWELLED NEAR A CENTURY AT GIBRALTAR BUILT IN UNIQUE CIRCUMSTANCES

[By Fiest Mate.] *

Believed to be the last East Indiaman afloat, the Java has been towed out of Gibraltar Bay to be broken up. Perhaps the most familiar mark in Gibraltar territorial waters, the Java has been moored in the bay for more than 80 years. She was used exclusively as a coal hulk. Generations of merchant seamen knew her as Hulk 16; from her spacious holds thousands of merchant vessels have been supplied with bunkering coal for the best part of a century.

Hers has been a romantic history. Built of teak at Calcutta in 1813, with a displacement of 1,175 tons, she carried 30 guns, of which 12 were mounted on the upper deck and 12 on the main deck. The ship’s name was intimately associated with her building, which originated in exceptional circumstances.

During the voyage of one of the early East Indiamen to Java and China a party of her passengers went ashore in Java. They were attacked by natives, who carried off a girl passenger of high birth. An officer with an armed party from the ship was at once landed, and after having searched the bush succeeded in overpowering the native, kidnappers and rescued the girl, who was found in a state of collapse, stripped of her-clothing.

Her father, whose gratitude to the ship’s officer as leader of the search party was unbounded, thereupon undertook to build and equip a ship as a present to his daughter’s rescuer.

The ship, when built, was named Java, and carried as a figurehead the form of a young girl with hands crossed over her breast. The Java began her trading career in 1841, and was occasionally chartered by the British Government as a transport at the princely rate of 17s lid a month. In *1856 the ship was purchased for use as a coal hulk at Gibraltar by a Mr W. H. Smith, founder of the shipping firm of Smith, Imossi, and Co., and has ridden at anchor in Gibraltar Bay ever sinceSANK AT HER LAUNCHING Half an hour before her scheduled time the aircraft' carrier, Formidable launched herself unexpectedly at Belfast a short time ago, leaving a trail of wreckage in her path. Those who believe that the operation of launching a ship is one of smooth and easy certainty would be surprised at the delicate work entailed in transferring the weight from the forest of shore props to the cradle on which the ship will slide down to the water. Only those responsible for the designing of the’ craft quite appreciate the strain and anxiety that accompany the operation/

Launched in September, 1907, near Spezia .(Italy), the.. Princess Jolanda was the largest vessel of her type then on the country’s slipways. She measured 485 ft long, with 49ft breadth, and a displacement of over 10.000 tons, having been designed to carry about 1,500 passengers and 240 of a crew.

It was a perfect day for a launching ceremony in all respects, but as the vessel started down the slipway the launching cradle was dragged along the hull. It burst into flames, causing the vessel to lean heavily on her side when she took to the water. The angle became more acute as she progressed —fully afloat, she continued to heel further and further.

' Tugs hurried to assist, but were powerless; the vessel was so far heeled over that tons of water poured into her. She could not recover, but sank deeper every moment. Then she submerged. but for parts of her hull, in shallow water. Efforts to salve her failed, though some machinery was recovered. No lives were lost through 1 the catastrophe.

LIABLE TO SEIZURE Detention by collectors of customs of all merchant ships belonging to or under the control of the Government of the German Reich or of German nationals in ports in New Zealand, or which may arrive in New Zealand ports, is provided for in the shipping detention emergency regulations. In addition to enemy,, ships, vessels to be seized as prizes include any neutral ship engaged in unneutral service, or breach of blockade, and any neutral ship which is herself contraband of war. •Among the vessels not liable to Seizure are hospital ships as provided by the Hague Convention and neutral ships having on board wounded, sick, or shipwrecked belligerents, but they remain liable to capture for any violations of I neutrality they may have committed. | PROTECTING THE CLYDE. Ghosts of the World War are stirring on the west coast of Scotland as men take steps to protect their ships and shipbuilding on the River Clyde. It will be recalled that it was there, in 1915, that a German submarine sank a British armed cruiser. Torpedoed at 5 o’clock in the mornina' the ship was reported to have gone down within four minutes of the blow with her commander and a crew of some 200 men. The River Clyde was than the scene of humming shipbuilding operations, King George V. and other officials making several inspection, visits there during the war to look after the defences of the Empire and encourage i the workers.