TALES OF THE SEA

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIII, 23 July 1929, Page 9

TALES OF THE SEA

VESSELS THAT WERE LOST SOME THAT CAME HOMII CHANGE FOR THE KOEBENHAVN The recent departure from Sydney oi tlii! steamer Juuoe in scureh of the missing Uiinisli (raining shin Koebenlnivii Will pnil);il)ly appear In many to be sonieining in the nature of a lorlorn hope, so greatly is the vessel overdue, for she Jell Hiie'iins Aires J'or Australia as Joiig ago as 14th Deeeniber. It was' in 1924, when the Koebcnhiivu paid a visit to Sydney with limber, that Mr V. W. Cooinbes, the wnlor of an article in the Sydney Monihig Herald, inspected her. Lie says;—"Truly she was a magnificent vessel beyond question the lmesl sailing ship ever turned out. from a British yard. Very naturally her master was inordinately proud oi his command and I was Llie recipient of several interesting photographs. A deck scene on the big barque in heavy weather is of particular interest. Very strongly manned and extremely well equipped, il is difficult to say what has been her fate. She may have been burned at sea, a. frequent ending in llie days of wooden ships. "Then again there is the possibility that things were cut rather fine in the matter of ballast, and that she capsized in ii. sudden squall when caught under heavy canvas. What this means will bo realised when the disaster to the British training ship Euryclico is recalled. Lastly comes the most probable cause of the disappearance of the Koebenhavn, and that is n. collision with an iceberg, known to be very numerous and farther north than usual this year. "The writer has vivid recollections of a- stormy passage in those latitudes, l'or three days after sighting Uie Cressets we were passing icebergs, some of great size and very glad we were to see the last of them.' As Kipling aptly put it : "Hail, snow and ice, they praise the Lord, I've met them at their work ; And wished we had another route, Or they another kirk." „ SHIPS THAT DID COME HOME "But long overdue as is the Koebenhavn there is just a chance that her crew of cadets may survive. Overdue ships have themselves come to port before now. I suppose there are not many living who can recall the consternation in England when the famous ship James Bain.es became overdue. .She was considered the finest and fastest ship afloat. On her previous voyage she had made the. phenomenal run of 63 days out to> Melbourne, and then went home in 69. "The James Baines left Melbourne on 7th August, 1856, with a large passenger list and many thousands of ounces of gold. When 80i days passed and there was no sign of her fears began to rise and this increased to fever heat when 100 days passed without news of her. Delayed by light weather she took 105 days, a time which would be thought quite respectable by the grain waggons of to-day, but which in the case of a. crack clipper like the James Baines gave cause for grave anxiety. "Another case of a vessel turning up safely after being given up for lost was the barque Fnrtlibank, which, after she had been almost forgotten, sailed into Portland. Oregon, 210 flay*, out from Genoa. One readily recalls the story of the ship Chillicothe. Buffeted by a long series of gales the big American was long overdue when she was towed in to Port Jackson 114 days out from Astoria. With the food supply exhausted, nothing but the ingenuity of tho cook kept the crew alive. ' STORY OP OTHER VESSELS "Did space permit one could tell many a story of men surviving who were given Up for lost. Cases which occur to the mind are the wrecks of the Grafton in 1863, the Minerva a year later, the Invercauld, the General Grant, the Spirit of the Dawn, the French barque Anjou in. 1905, and the Dundonald in 1907. All these were wrecked in the Auckland Isles, .some 180 miles south of New Zealand, and in each case survivors were rescued after all hope had been abandoned. The. saving of the Grafton's crew was brought about by a truly marvellous boating feat by three of the men. In an old and frail 12ft dinghy they managed to reach Stewart Island, and report tho loss of their vessel, whereupon the New Zealand Government immediately despatched a rescue steamer. "The story of the Dundonald is an epic of the sea, bringing out the won-1 derful courage and resources of the British sailor. The Dundonald was a fourmast British barque of 2205 tons, which went ashore on Disappointment Island, on a pitch dark night, with a heavy sea running. What the survivors went through and what they did are almost unbelievable. Eventually they built some sort of a boat of little, more than i twigs and got across to the main island, I where they eventually found one of the depots intended by the New Zealand Government for the use of castaways, j 'Ultimately they reached civilisations; just a year after they had been given up: 'as lost.' THE CASE OP THE STRATHMOKEj "An outstanding story of a missing ship, and one which seems to coincide with that of the Koebenhavn, is that of i tile Slrathmore, an iron ship of 1500 ■ tons. She left London on 17th April, i 1875, with a crew of 38 and 50 passengers, and on 30th June struck on a reef off Apostle Island, an outlier of the. Crozets, the others of the group being Possession, Penguin, Swine and Past Islands. After indescribable hardship the survivors were eventually rescued by the whaler Young Phoenix, of New Bedford, and they reached homo after nearly a year's absence. "It was probably the memory of this story which caused the skipper of the. Blue. Funnel liner Deucalion to pay a visit to this lonely spot in his search for the missing barque. Everyone will hope that, the long and rather perilous voyage of the Junee may bring about the discovery and rescue of teh missing Danes, if not the salvage of tip l Koebenhavn herself.