STORY OF THE WOOTTON’S BREAKDOWN.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 461, 8 June 1909, Page 3

STORY OF THE WOOTTON’S BREAKDOWN.

FINE SEAMANSHIP. Capt. W. G. Scott, master of the Wootton, which reached Lyttelton on Saturday afternoon after a trying experience, gave an interesting account of the steamer’s voyage to a Press representative. He stated that the vessel left Kaiapoi on Tuesday afternoon with a full cargo of produce for Foxton. About 6 o’clock on Wednesday night, while conversing with the mate, on the bridge, he was startled by a loud report and crash from the engineroom. He made his way below at once. The chief engineer, Mr J. M. Arthur, was on the spot, and had shut off steam, and an examination showed that the connecting rod of the low-pressure cylinder had broken in the collar coupling it to the piston rod. At the moment when the rod broke, the inflow of steam forced up the piston, and blew the cylinder cover clean off. The cover flew up with great force, and struck the engineroom ceiling, and then fell back on the platform round the engines. The motion of the engines had thrown the broken rod against the guard of the engines, breaking it away. The engines being disabled, the fires were drawn from the boiler, and steam let down. The vessel was then drifting on to a lee'shore, but Captain Scott made all sail, and headed the vessel out into the Strait, and was soon out of immediate danger. Shortly after dark Captain Scott saw the lights of a steamer, and fired rockets and burned blue lights to attract her attention. The steamer bore down on the Wootton, and proved to be the Blenheim, bound from Blenheim to Wellington. She came alongside, and after considerable difficulty got a line aboard the Wootton, and by 8 p.m. the latter vessel was under tow, with about 15 fathoms of her own cable shackled on to 60 or 70 fathoms of wire from the Blenheim. The Blenheim with her disabled charge, headed for Pencarrow in the teeth of a north-west gale and heavy sea, and got within about fifteen miles of the lighthouse. The wind was freshening and the sea increasing, and the Blenheim, being unable to make Pencarrow, headed for Palliser Bay. Captain Scott stated that the two vessels were going to leeward all the time, and that finally at 6.40 a.m., on Thursday, the Blenheim, after blowing four blasts of her whistle, cast off the tow line and headed for Wellington, leaving those on board the disabled vessel rolling and pitching in the heavy sea, to get the whole of the cable and wire hawser aboard as best they could. Capt. Scott said he hove the Wootton to for an hour, while the tow line was got aboard with great difficulty, and then, after getting the vessel before the wind, squared away for Kaikoura. Under all sail the Wootton made fast time southwards, and averaged about seven knots an hour.

Meanwhile the chief engineer and his staff were hard at work on the damaged engines. The lowpressure cylinder cover was badly cracked, but it was put back into its place, and, after many hours of toil, steam was raised and the engines working with the highpressure cylinder only, were got going “ dead slow ” about nine o’clock on Thursday night. The engines, however, were a sorry job at best. There were great difficulties for the engineers, and the passage down the coast was a very anxious one for Captain Scott, whose great fear was that a strong southerly blow would be met with. The wind, however, held from the north-west until Double Corner Was passed at eleven o’clock on Friday morning. It then blew from the southward, but by “nursing” the engines and keeping the steamer under sail close in shore round Pegasus Bay, Captain Scott succeeded in getting his vessel safely into Eyttelton,. where he was congratulated* on the good seamanship „he had displayed lit

extricating the Wootton from an exceedingly dangerous position in storm-swept Cook Strait, and bringing her down the coast under great difficulties.