“ISOLATED PACIFIC”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 760, 5 September 1929, Page 11

“ISOLATED PACIFIC”

ATLANTIC MARINER’S FIRST IMPRESSIONS DIFFERENCE IN CONDITIONS “It was as if we were completely isolated. We never sighted a ship all the way from Balboa to Cuvier Island. I was surprised at the weather we had, even allowing for the fact that we suffered an exceptionally bad buffeting as compared with other vessels. The great number of albatrosses was most conspicuous.” IX these words, Mr. D. Wilson, chief officer of the cargo steamer Scotscraig, gave b.is first impressions of the South Pacific Ocean as seen through the eyes of a mariner who had previously sailed only on the Atlantic. The Seotscraig is at Queen's Wharf discharging sulphur from Texas. Mr. Wilson stated there was a great difference between the conditions prevailing on the run down from Panama -to New Zealand and those obtaining in the Atlantic Ocean. It was unusual to go without sight of another ship for more than seven days in the Atlantic. “It is a common impression among ‘Western Ocean’ seamen that the Pacific Ocean is almost as placid as its name implies,” continued Mr. Wilson. It was known to them that ships in the Pacific meet with occasional severe cyclones, but it was thought that such cyclones passed quickly and left little or no effects. In the Pacific Ocean the Seotscraig had encountered almost three, weeks of continuously bad weather. There had also been days on end of heavily clouded skies and dark and gloomy conditions, without rain or strong winds, which was a thing almost unknown on the Atlantic. There were no albatrosses on the “Western Ocean.” but they were met in the South Atlantic on the run to the River Plate district of Argentine and to Africa. WIRELESS COMMUNICATION

Again there was the subject of wireless communication. Whereas on the Atlantic it was a common thing for a ship with the range of the average cargo vessel to be able to communicate with 20 vessels each day, in the South Pacific such a ship might go for lengthy periods wltn only one vessel in range a day and that perhaps a thousand miles away. In the Atlantic Ocean a ship would be one day off at the most, and they were generally much nearer, particularly on the “Western Ocean” routes. In the South Atlantic a vessel with the range mentioned would, on the average, be in touch with ten ships each day. “It is quite possible to be right out of wireless range of any other ship while sailing the South Pacific Ocean,” said Mr. W. H. Rouse, the Scotscraig’s wireless operator. “Such a thing is impossible in the Atlantic, regardless of the route a ship may be on.”

It was obvious that such lack of wireless communication placed vessels in the South Pacific in a much more dangerous position if any mishap befel them. Concluding, Mr. Wilson said that the general conditions prevailing in the Atlantic Ocean left sailors more confident than he had felt on this, his first trip in the South Pacific.