ONLY JUST IN TIME

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12604, 15 November 1926, Page 12

ONLY JUST IN TIME

ON A BLAZING TRAWLER TWO BROTHERS’CLOSE CALL , CLOTHES ALIGHT IN PLACES , An epic story of the sea of how tw< sailor brothers, after an heroic, all night attempt to subdue a fire o< j board their boat in the English Chari nel, sat dazed and burned, huddled j together astride the bowsprit, facing death either by burning or drowning, was related in a London newspapei recently. ; The large oil tank steamer, Alle--1 gheny, commanded by Captain A. H. I Flint, steamed into the Downs, Deal, 5 blowing her hooter loudly. The Deal motor-boat- at once put off, and Captain Flint reported that he had two 1 young shipwrecked sailors to land. 1 They were Captain W.’ Medhurst, ot the Ramsgate motor fishing trawler Britannia, and his brother Arthur, who comprised the crew of the ill-fatad trawler. When they were met oil landing, Captain Medhurst said in an interview:— At about 11 o’clock last night we were trawling in mid-channel about east by north of Beachy Head in some sixteen fathoms of water. Our engine was running, as we nad our trawl down. We were cleaning our previous catch of fish, which was still lying c-n deck. Suddenly we saw flames and smoke shoot up from- the engineroom. “Ship on fire,” we cried. How it occurred we don’t know. It may have been that the oil lamp in the motor-room upset or the motor itself backfired. The fire spread rapidly, until the whole of the alter part of the ship was ablaze. We used a fire extinguisher, but it was no good. We threw water on tho burning mass, and still the fire beat us. Soon' the whole ship was ablaze and the large mainsail, which we had set, a;so caught tire. THE ONLY BOAT GETS ADRIFT. We were right in the track of shipping, and the fire, which must have resembled a huge beacon, lit up. the sea for a considerable distance. We managed to lower our oulv boat, but whether in the hurry and confusion we forgot to secure it, or whether the rope burned through, wo cannot tell. My brother Arthur, with a lope which I quickly fastened under his shoulders, plunged overboard, fully clothed, to recover it, hut the tide was running very strongly and lie could not reach it. I paid out the full extent of the rope, but seeing the boat had travelled much too far I called to him to come back. “It is no good, old boy,” I said; “you will never get it: let’s face it alone here together.” So I pulled him back by the rope and helped him on board, although I realised that perhaps I had brought him back to Le burnt to death instead of letting him drown. By this time the whole ship was afire, blazing and crackling in all directions. The heat was terrible, tut the smoke and flame were worse and nearly overcame us. We let go the anchor to get her head to wind, and so to drive the smoke and flames aft. Still the fire continued to | ..in on us. Our clothes were alight in places, and’ part of the deck forward where wo were, although not actually, alight, was too, hot for us to stand on. We were driven to our last extremity—to yrnwl out to the end of the .bowsnrit, ■faced with death in two directions. The ship began to settle down, and our dangling legs got lower and lower in the water. We thought of home and tried to buck each other uo. We had both been shipwrecked before in the steam trawler, Boy Daniel, c-f Shoreham; but this job was the nearest squeak we had ever had.

RESCUED BY GERMAN BOAT. The vessel was all awash and likely to founder at any moment. Suddenly we saw a small rowing boat. It came from a German schooner, the Carl.-of Leer, which by the light of the flames we could see not far away. I called to the Germans to come on the weather port bow, as that was the only point where they could' get near us. They were only just in time, for one minute, after we dropped into their boat the Britannia sank with a loud hissing noise. Captain H. Muller, of the Carl, was very kind to us. He told us that he had seen us for over an tout, but his vessel being a sailing ship, he had been unable to come alongside sooner. When the Britannia went down we lost everything, even our clothes and whnt little money we had. Later the German captain transferred us to the Allegheny.