STORM-TOSSED VALACIA

Hokitika Guardian, 6 March 1930, Page 2

STORM-TOSSED VALACIA

•FOUGHT ATLANTIC GALES

Except that she was not intended to founder, the Cunard steamer Valacia, which arrived in Auckland from New York last week, had an Atlantic experience very much like that of the celebrated craft iu Kipling’s poem which was “steered pulley-haul out across the. Bay,” and successfully “euchred” the storm. Steering gear torn adrift, battered by a living gale, the Valacia walloped in the trough of mountainous Atlantic seas, and the crew struggled to repair .damage that would have been a task ashore.

It was the same storm that pounded and disabled the steamer Largo Law that arrived in Auckland the other day, and told a thrilling story very similar to that of the Valacia. Both vessels limped into Falmouth after the storm had swept by, both suffering from crippled steering gear. Bad as was the plight of the Largo Law, the Valacia had a much worse time, and one marvels that men could patch up such ponderous gear as was carried away. Fortunately the Valacia, an old but staunch vessel of the rampant lion line, had an exceptionally experienced crew, all hard-bitten sailor man, a number of them ‘blue water” sailors. Captain Gronow, a veteran Cunard skipper, was no stranger to struggling with crippled steering gear. He was in command of the company’s Penenia in 1919 when her rudder carried away in the Atlantic when bound from England to New York, and for some 209 miles he steered her by means of the twin, screws.

HELPLESS,

Tlie Valacia, on Her memorable voyage, left the English coast on December 3. Next afternoon, when she was about 230 miles from the English Coast, to the south of Ireland, the wind was blowing a whole, gale, having gradually increased from the pievious day, and at half-past four the port forward leading sheave of the steering gear suddenly carried away. It is a ponderous casting, weighing a couple of hundredweight, and it oame away so suddenly that it was flung to the otherside of the deck. Luckily no one was passing at the time, and oddly enough during all the subsequent UurriCan weather and hazardous work not a single man met with an accident.

Measuring about 2ft bin in diameter, the sheave is the main “turning point” , in the steering chains and rods which connect the rudder with the steering gear under the bridge. As soon as this steam steering gear was out of action steps were taken to rig the hand steering gear, but as the rudder was banging about in tlie raging seas it was a considerable time before the adjustment could be made, aud even then, with ten men at the double wheel, it was impossible to control tlie course of the labouring ship. In order to repair the damaged sheave a hole had to be out through the iron decking, a ‘big engine hold-ing-bolt three inches or so in diameter had to be put through the sheave, the bottom end being secured below the deck, and the top end rigged with guys which were made fast to suitable supports. The work took two days, and the job was a great performance.

RAGING GALE

Unfortunately worse was to come. When the accident happened the wind was blowing a howling gale, and had reached “force 12”—the limit. Ashore the observations showed that the gale reached 120 miles an hour, higher than which the instruments could not register. The Valaeia’s officers reckoned that it was blowing between 120 and 160 miles an hour, and Captain Gronow had never seen anything like it in all the years he had been battling across the stormy Western Ocean. j

The steam-steering gear was connected up again on the 6th. The wind

was still blowing a gale, later increasing to hurricane force, with fearful seas. At .11 p.m. the final blow fell. After one tremendous sea struck the rudder the quadrant carried away, and the ship was then really helpless. As most people know, the tiller in a lug steamer is a ponderous steel casting, the fore end fitting over the rudder head and the after end being furnished with a quadrant, or heavy segment of a circle round which the steering chain works. The whole fixing weighs tons. The heavy easting had snapped fair in two where it fitted on to the rudder head. It was solid steel three inches thick and ten inches deep. As the chief officer remarked when be was pointed out what had happened, one would have expected the rudder head to carry away and not the casting.

Then came the task for the second

time of once more shipping the handsteering gear, which was hot so simple as it sounds. In order to effect the change-over it was necessary to connect two arms from the rudder head to the threaded sleeve on. tlie Luge screw worked by the hand wheels.

In calm Aveathor it would be a nun ter of a few minutes, but with the rudder slamming from side to side in the trough of the seas it was impossible to guide the arms and pin them on to tlie sleeve. The men doing the job simply had to stand by directing the arms into the slots and trying to drop in the pins at the psychological moment. These pins are a foot long and three inches in diameter, but time after time they were thrown out of the slots by tlie plunging arms as thought they were elothos pegs. After an hour’s tedious work the arms “clicked” and tlie pins dropped into their proper holes, but once more it was impossible to control the rudder in such a pounding, sea. The ship plunged about in the trough of the sea until the Bth, absolutely unmanageable, rolling about like a log. All the crew could do was to wait until the gale had blown itself out. Late on the night of tie Bth there was a. lull and the handsteering gear was workable. She made for Falmouth, the nearest port, which was reached on the afternoon of tne 9th, and there she found plenty more companions in misfortune. It took 14 days to effect repairs to the Valacia, a new tiller having to be cast, and shrunk on to the rudder head, and a new sheave casting fitted in place of the one that carried away. The ship left Falmouth on December 23 and continued her voyage to New l r ork.

Captain S. Gronow is in command, and the other officers are: First, J. C. Munro; second, M. Boston; third, J. Kettlcwell; chief engineer, ,J. Winton ; second, C. Dawson; third, J. Griffiths; fourth, V. Broom; and fifth, IV. Keasley.

There are also three cadets, young Egyptians who are being trained in the British Mercantile Marine.

The Valacia is a happy ship, which may he gathered from the fact that since she. was commissioned at Liverpool on November 21 not one hand lias walked—most unusual for such a cruft in these days,