STORMY PASSAGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 712, 11 July 1929, Page 6

STORMY PASSAGE

ANTWERP TO AUCKLAND IN 69 DAYS KING GRUFFYDD IN PORT Sixty-nine days out from Antwerp on a passage during which she met with most severe conditions, the King Line steamer King Gruffydd arrived in the stream at Auckland at 2.30 o’clock ’a Y morning with a full cargo of basic slag. She is now discharging at King’s Wharf. Tiie Belgian port was cleared on May 1, and three days after the vessel encountered the first rough conditions in the English Channel. From then on it was a succession of gales right across the Atlantic Ocean and down to Newport News, where she bunkered. She left there on May 26, and on the run down to Colon enjoyed fair weather, and averaged the best speed of the Avhole voyage, nine knots. Balboa was cleared on June 4 and favourable weather was experienced as far as Pitcairn Island, but after passing there the King Gruffyd ran into violent conditions which prevailed almost as far as the New Zealand coast. She had to battle against a southerly storm, head winds and seas, and for five days made exceptionally slow progress and laboured heavily. To make matters worse, her cargo of basic slag is a “deadweight,” and the vessel drove solidly into even the worst seas. This “pile-driving” was the cause of the fo’c’sl port-holes being stove • in, the ship fairly “burying her nose in it.” They had to be blocked with wooden plugs. The weather came up heavily last Saturday night and on Sunday morning the King Gruffydd was pounded by a sea which rose as high as the bridge deck. This was the worst of the whole trip. The well decks and cabins were flooded, water entered the engineroom, and everything aboard was displaced. This sea, which struck the ship at an awkward angle, fairly staggered her, and she shook from truck to keel. No watch was kept on the head, during the last fortnight of the trip, so bad was the weather “up for’ard.” Fortunately there was no serious damage done, even during the height of the worst storm.