EIGHT HOURS' OVERBOARD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8261, 15 October 1906, Page 7

EIGHT HOURS' OVERBOARD.

A remarkable story of the sea comes from tho Mediterranean to Liverpool. The details have been leceived at Liverpool by Mr Joseph Honlt, the owner oi the steamship Benshaw, which arrived reoently at Genoa, The captain of the Benshaw wrote that early in the morning of the 16th inst., when the Benshaw was steaming about latitude 36.14 N., longitude 6.40 W., great excitement was created ou board when the lookout yelled that he saw a naked mau swimming in tho soa. Not a soul was missing from the Benshaw, and though the night was clear there was no other ship in sight. Yet her* was a man feebly keeping himself afloat and crying for help. A lifebuoy was promptly flung to tbe man in the water, and in as short a time as possible tho Beuehaw's way was stopped, a boat lowered, and the stranger quickly rescued. He was very rnuen exhausted, bnt on rocotery ho told an almost Incredible story. He said that be was Paul Seidler, Hungarian interpreter to the Ounard liner Oarpathia, then on a voyage from New York to Genoa, via Gibraltar, and Jon tbe previous evening, he either fell or jumped t overboard, and for the ensuing eight hours until'he was rescued at 4 a.m. by the Bensnaw, he bad been paddling about In an apparently hopeless effort to save his life, lit the afternoon of that day the Benshaw sighted the Oarpathia coming from Gibraltar towards Genoa, and signalled the rescue of the man. The two vessels steamed together, and the man Seidler was tuansferred by rowing boat to bis own ship. It transpired that after his disappearance the previous night the Oarpathia cruised about fer several hours searching for him, and eventually resumed her voyage,, believing Seidler to have gore to the bottom.