A Story of the Sea.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 205, 3 January 1894, Page 2

A Story of the Sea.

4» ■ A thrilling story of suffering and privations during twenty-eight days in an open boat on the high seas i 3 told by Captain Pedersen, of the schooner W. F. Witzeinan, which reached Sydney on the sth ult. Captain Pedersen was in Sydney last year in the barque Lady Lampson, aud loaded coal at Pyrmont for Honolulu. The voyage was commenced on the Ist December, 1892, and the vessel was seventy -five days out, when she crashed on to a reef oft" Palmyra Island, in the North Pacific. A storm was raging at the time, and in a very short while the Lady Lampson was a hopeless wreck, the crew barely escaping with their lives in two of the ship's boats. After a hurried consultation the shipwrecked castaways decided to make for the port of Honolulu, the mate taking charge of one boat and the captain the other. The boats, favored by fine weather, kept company for a few days, and then during a storm they parted. The mate's boat was fortunate enough to fall in with the trading schooner Martha Tuft, and the occupants were taken on board by her captain and landed safely at San Francisco. Those with captain Pedersen were less fortunate. They were twenty-eight days tossing about on the Pacific, and when at last they sailed into Honolulu were in a terrible plight. Mrs Pedersen, the captain's wife, who was amongst the number, was very much emaciated, and had to be assisted ashore. Captain Pedersen was scarcely less reduced and enfeebled than his wife. The men also showed signs of having passed through a trying ordeal. " One night," says the captain, " we were overtaken by a hurricane, nnd we thought it was our last night alive. We hastily threw out oil to calm the sea and small casks to steady the boat, but the frail craft was beyoud control, and for hours was buffetted about by the waves like a cork. One wave broke over the boat and nearly swamped it, and it was only by dint of great exertion that we pulled her through and reached Honolulu." The Lady Lampson was a barque of 421 tons, owned by Messrs Clifford, Moore and Co.