Show adventurers club killer ship by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter banter I 1 IVE VE told you stories about human killers and ive spun you tales about animal killers this is the story of a killer ship carl L told me this story it happened to him in 1902 when he found himself broke and out of a job in south africa and signed on i windjammer for a trip to south america 1 the windjammer was the bark albatross which had just brought a load of corn over from buenos aires and was going back to the same port in ballast there it would pick up a load of wheat and return tf east london cape colony that suited carls plans so he be sailed acair one morning at daybreak and six weeks later after an uneventful trip the albatross entered the plata river and docked at buenos aires so far everything had gone smoothly but they had no sooner begun loading grain for the return trip than it became evident that the albatross was none too seaworthy a craft when the sand ballast had been taken out of the hold water began coming in through the seams that bother the captain any to speak of he be just let the ship settle in the mad and when the mud got into the seams and closed them up he began loading again many a sailor would have quit that ship then and there but carl wanted to get back to south africa he stayed on for the return t cai i but the ship was hardly out of the river again before he began to regret ei t im these stowaways were not pleasant ones the weather was fair enough at the moment it was late june alq the old tub was wallowing along before a fair breeze but it was th rats that bothered carl swarms of them had come aboard while the ship was loading grain and now they were threatening to take over the ship we must have had half the rats in the argentine with us carl says they were everywhere we found them in the pockets of our clothes in our bunks and in short everywhere every here liere we looked while we wa were lying asleep we were awakened by the animals crawling across our faces and we had to lie perfectly still while we felt their cold feet and tails tickling our noses many a tame I 1 stepped on one when I got out of my bunk to go on watch were bad but asthik agthe a aure arl 11 IKS became worse A heavy gale blew uil op abid and it quickly increased to hurricane force the seas mounted until they seemed to be fifty feet high and the old ship with nothing but a storm up was plunging ahead at halt half again her usual speed for a day the ship withstood the buffeting of the gale but that night along about eight bells the carpenter sounded the bilges and re rea 7 A heavy gale blew up and quickly increased to a hurricane ported to the captain that there was tour four feet of water in the hold the bhoj captain ordered all hands to the pumps no life preservers they must stay with the ship the crew worked grimly at those pumps because they knew they were working for their lives four feet of water says carl is bad in any ship in a storm it was especially bad in this rotten old tub wo we had no life preservers and the lifeboats lifeboat 3 were so rotten that they would fall apart if any attempt was made to raise them off their cradles the men pumped for two hours and the carpenter sounded the bilges again this time there was five feet of water in the bilges in spite of all the men could do it had bad gained a foot they kept on pumping but the captain was worried at three in the morning when the crew was so exhausted that hardly a one ona of them could stand up to the pumps he called them all into his cabin wet and hungry 1 they trooped in and the captain told them bluntly that he know what to do and wanted to get the mens opinions there were two courses courses they could follow land far distant in the sky they could see the reflection of the cape of good hope light they could keep on in gand try to make port or they could run the tha ship on the rocks giving the men a chance to be washed ashore it if they 1 t escaped being killed by the wreckage or pulled to their deate deaths by the l undertow mate discovers what the trouble was there a chance of keeping the ship afloat until they reached port the men all knew it the chief mate was for piling the boat on the rocks and the men agreed with him the ship was turned about and headed for the shore and we were a silent crew as we worked says saya carl for we knew that in a few hours we would crash and then what but suddenly the mate made a discovery before the bark had been turned toward shore she had been running on her starboard tack with the port side deep down in the water when they came about the wind and the he seas were astern and she came up on an even keel and now the mate looking over the port side saw a stream of water coming out of a great gap cap in the hull bull of i the ship at a point which had been submerged a few moments before it was the cause of all their troubles A piece of floating timber had struck the side of the ship and rammed a hole in the rotten planking 7 the wind was dying out by that time the carpenter rigged a scaffold over the side filled the hole with bags of oakum and nailed a heavy canvas over it we hove to says carl and it was with a different feeling that we manned those pumps again it was six in the morning now and we pumped until eleven when the pumps began sucking air and we knew she was empty we were all tired but we were happy six days after that we entered the harbor of east london where the whole town turned out to view the battered looking wreck ZI as it came limping in and thus ended that never to be forgotten voyage f of ilia ihu bark albatross I 1 0 service |