An Eventful Voyage

Feilding Star, Volume XII, Issue 26, 16 August 1890, Page 4

An Eventful Voyage

(Post's own Correspondent.) M2LBGUBNK, August 3. The ship Loch Ryan, which recently at Melbourne from Glasgow, .-had an 'eventful' passage. While the --vessel was being towed down the Clyde, a seaman named Muir fell overboard and was" drowned, despite the efforts of another of the crew mamed .Munro to save him. The . .meridian of the Cape .of Good Hope - vas crossed on the . 28th ' of June,' and s-snext day some extraordinary weather 7? as encountered. The glass which tras steady a$ 30.10, gave notforwarning that mischief was brewing, and -the wind all day had been light and variable: ' The night set ' in' as black as pitch, and one of the heaviest thunderstorms ever , met,: with < burst over the ship. The lightning was something awful and the thunder terrific. The wind kept flying about in all directions in puffs and squalls, and then, frequent showers,* of hail. At 4 o'clock next morning a shower of hail, or rather pieces of ice fell, and for the space of five minutes while it lasted no one could appear on deck, tiome of- the pieces are alleged to have been the. size. of a small tumbler or a duck's egg, aud the clatter they made in descent, was like the .sound, of. a smart fire of a mitrailleuse. The sea at the time was calm. At 4.30 a.m. the main" royal pole and truck were struck 'by -lightning and broken in pieces. -When the cyclone had expended its : fury the wind set in from the north, . shifting round to N.W., .and increasing U> a heavy gale, which .brought up a high sea,. This lasted for 45 hours, and the ship ran under her top-sails and foresail! t