VESSEL’S STORMY TRIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 756, 31 August 1929, Page 1

VESSEL’S STORMY TRIP

BATTERED BY THREE CYCLONES SCOTSCRAIG ARRIVES Battered about by three cyclones and numerous violent gales, fighting mountainous seas and enveloped in torrential rain, the cargo steamer Sootscraig fought out a long and trying trip from Balboa j to Auckland. She arrived in the stream at 7.50 o’clock this morning after a trip of 37 days from the Panama terminal, and later berthed at Queen’s Wharf to discharge part of her cargo of sulphur from Galveston, Texas. Clearing the Panama Canal on July 24, the vessel experienced fair weather until August 8, when she ran Into a small cyclone, which lasted from 10 o’clock that night until midnight the following night. On this occasion the Scotscraig was hove-to for two hours. The second cyclone was encountered on August 21 at 1 a.m., and the gale held till midnight of the 22nd. So violent were the conditions that Captain L. J. D. Whitelaw hove-to for 22 hours. When this cyclone had passed the unfortunate Scotscraig was assailed by a “secondary,” consisting of a terrific westerly gale, which buffeted her about very badly. The ship kept steaming ahead at full speed. An idea of the force of this gale may be gained from the fact that although the Scotscraig’s maximum speed is nine knots she was able to do only three knots —her slowest speed for the whole trip. The “secondary” was accompanied by torrential rain and a heavy swell. THIRD CYCLONE STRIKES HER “At noon of August 25 we w'ere struck by the third cyclone,” said Captain Whitelaw. “It was most peculiar. We were hove-to only from 6 p.m. till 10 p.m. At *he latter hour the barometer stopped falling, the wind fell light, and we were enveloped in torrents of rain. Then an hour later the glass started falling again. At 3 a.m. a gale of great violence came down on us from the south-east, and it was necessary to heave-to from 4 a.m. till 0 o’clock that night.” While hove-to the Scotscraig was frequently struck by squalls of hurricane force. Seas were mountainous and the rain came down in immense volumes. When the wind finally abated the ship proceeded on her course, but she had to contend with a heavy southerly swell from then until yesterday morning. “During the force of the cyclones and gales the decks were continuously flooded with heavy water,” said Captain Whitelaw. “The saloon was washed out twice and the officers’ cabins were always flooded out." The Scotscraig’s deadweight cargo made her labour heavily under the violent conditions. Luckily not the slightest damage was done, and no one was injured. This was due, according to Captain Whitelaw, to the vessel’s great seaworthiness. "She is an excellent sea boat, otherwise she would have been smashed up.” he stated. “We were most unlucky to encounter in succession, and so close together, two cyclones as big as the last two were. It was very bad luck.”