FIERCE HURRICANE

Hokitika Guardian, 31 July 1930, Page 7

FIERCE HURRICANE

BARQUE OFF CAPE HORN,

SWEPT BY HEAVY SEAS

LONDON, July 15. “When off the Chilean coast, on board the C. B. Pedersen (the Swt isli barque which ; nas . arrived at Queenstown, Ireland, from Geelong), were heard, on my portable wireless Set,- the arrangements for the wireless telephone talk between the Australian and British Prime Ministers, Mr Scullin and Mr McDonald, on April 30, and then the talk itself,” said Mr Anthony Bridges, of Melbourne. | Describing what Captain Daldstrom . called “the father of all hurricanes,” * which the barque encountered when 203 miles west of Cape Horn, Mr Bridges said: “The seas broke into the apprentices’ quarters, and most of them had no mattresses for the nest of the voyage. The skylight in the cook’s galley was smashed in, the //ater continually quenching the fires. The pots were roped to the stove, which was so arranged that the water from the coffee pots spilled into the boiling salf beef and thence into the pea soup.

“During the night the flying bridge between the midship house and the apprentices’ house was carried awny. Pigs were found sleeping contentedly on a coil of wire beneath the forecastle head, “The helmsman was oqught by a sea and hurled through the poop railing, where he hung by his elbows. The second mate took the wheel, and apprentices rescued the helmsman.

“Later a wave came aboard when the vessel had her hows down in a trough, and when the bows lifted everything was swept clear from the forecastle. The sea mounted 40 feet up the mizzen, and hundreds of tons of water came down under the overhanging poop deck, which was sent skywards, buckling the bulwarks like paper, smashing down the saloon bulkhead, and allowing the sea,:;ffee entry. “The Captain, and first mate took the wheel, while the crew -desperately put out oil hags over the bows, these serving to -break the force of the heavy seas.”