A REMARKABLE VOYAGE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVII, Issue 2, 1 May 1915, Page 4

A REMARKABLE VOYAGE.

Nows of the sale of a one-time favourite coasting and Ishuid steamer, the rcd-funnc] liner Pukaki, to a Melbourne firm, recalls to a Lyttelton Times writer an incident illustrative of the seamanly skill and resourcefulness which sudden emergencies bring to light just as much in this age of steam as in the old days when canvas ruled. The Pukaki, in her first year afloat, was on her way from Timaru to Brisbane, with a number of passengers as well as a big cargo of produce, when her thrust shaft broke and she was left tossing crippled in the middle of the Tasman Sea. In those times most of the Union Company’s steamers, and in fact most of the large steam craft trading to New Zealand, carried square sail on the foremast, in addition to small fore-and-aft sails, and it was upon this canvas that the Pukaki now had to rely. All sail was set and the master, Captain Johnson, put his disabled ship about and started to work her hack to Wellington. The Pukaki was not built to sail, but the officers and.crew did their best to turn her into a “wind-jammer,” and they brought her safely though slowly hack six hundred miles to Cook Strait and into Wellintgon harbor under canvas alone. It was a most remarkable performance, and though of course it was the propitious winds that made the feat possible, it stands as an example of sailorly doggedness and fitness for grappling with the unexpected.