Would not wait for the Pilot.

Manawatu Herald, 22 September 1898, Page 3

Would not wait for the Pilot.

A good story is told by the London • * Syren ' of a British tramp steamer that waa ready to leave Baltimore one dark and dirty night, but the pilot engaged refused to take her out before daylight. The skipper re fused to lose ten hours, and started along himself. She gob. out and across all right, and the pilot was j suspended for three months in ocn. sequence. But after her cargo ban . been discharged in London, and part of a new cargo had been taken iv enough to stiffen her, the engineer : proceeded to pump out her balias' tanks to see that they were perfectly »ivy. He pumped for about thm* hours, and found tha tanks still full. He continued to pump all day, am' still found the tacks all full. Then the steamer was put in dry dock to solve the mystery, and the aatoniab ing discovery waa made that she hat? several holes ia her bottom, and bad been simply floating on her tank tops. The skipper then had a fain 1 recollection that she did " scratch gravel " in Hampden Roads on tb<nigbt that he took her out without ?. pilot, but nothing was said of it in her log, and the underwriters allowed that instead of gravel she must hay.v Boratobed bricks, and about thru* acres of them at that to say the least. '