ATLANTIC DERELICTS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4778, 19 November 1924, Page 2

ATLANTIC DERELICTS.

, SOURCE OF DANGER. SCHOONER’S 2700-MILE DRIFT. The Atlantic navigator has constantly .to be on his guard against the perils peculiar to this restless ocean, and after fog, snow, and ice not the least potent source of danger to shipping is the floating derelict. It has been estimated that there are twenty derelicts in the North Atlantic at any given moment, each of them living on an average thirty days, and the fact that collisions with such insiduous objects are so few and far between is a tribute to the efficiency of the wdteh kept on board the large liners. The.annals of trans-atlantic navigation contain many notable instances of abandoned vessefe which have kept afloat for months and even years (states the “Observer”), and to these must be added the Nova Scotian schooner Governor Parr, which was reported the other day off the Portuguese coast.

She left Ingramport (U.S.) on September 25 last with a cargo of timber for Buenos Ayres, but a few days later she was dismasted in a violent gale and was abandoned on October 3, From that time nothing was heard of her until the Elder-Dempster liner Zaria encountered her in mid-Atlan-tic. right in the track of shipping. A party was sent, off to her, and she was set on fire in the hope that this would put an end to her. On July 29, however, a liner homeward bound from the River Plate passed close to her between the Azores and Portugal, while since then she has been seen again, apparently capable of remaining afloat for an indefinite period unless steps are taken to locate and sink her.

The derelict, menace has engaged the attention of both the British and American Governments, but whereas two committees have sat in this country to consider the matter and nothing has been done, the United States Government commissioned many years ago a vessel for the special purpose of searching for and destroying these menaces to the safety of life and property at sea. The record foi longevity is probably hel/1 by a derelict which drifted about in the North Atlantic for thirty-one months, while another remarkable case was that of the American schooner W. L. White, which, abandoned in March, 1888, off the United States coast, was piled up on one of the Hebridean islands in January, 1988, having covered in that time a distance of 6000 miles. It has been found that ships abandoned along the Atlantic seaboard of the United States are carried south by the Labrador current for some distance, until, getting into the Gulf Stream, they proceed on a north-eajst-erly course. Near the Azores the sea surface current opens out fanwise, and should a ship get into the southern portion, as the Governor Parr evidently did, she may be months covering a few hundred miles. Once well into the northern stream, however, she will probably fetch up somewhere on the north coast of Scotland.

Probably now that the whereabouts of the Governor Parr has ben so closely defined, steps will be taken to bring her career to an end. How great is the derelict’s capacity for mischief was shown in the spring of 1900, when the Allan liner lonian struck one and limped into port with a gash 40 feet long in her side. •