The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1893-03-27
ADVENTURES OF A WR Eek,
A Vessel Which Was Completely Severed
In Two,

A Vessel Which Was Completely Severed
In Two.
On the 22d Of last June the German
steamship Trave and the ship Fred B.
Taylor were in collision about one hun
dred miles southeast of Nantucket, and
the Taylor was completely cut in two,
SO that the bow and the stern parts of
the ship fioated apart. This was a suf-
hciently singular occurrence in itself,
but the subsequent behavior of the
divided halves was more singular still.
Being in a frequented part of the ocean,,
each part was sighted more than a
score of times by passing vessels within
a few weeks after the accident, and the
compilers of the pilot charts at Wash
ington have taken advantage Of the
fact to carefully trace their course.
Contrary as it may appear to all prob
ability, the severed parts of the wrecked
ship Immediately began to drift in OPP
posite directions. The bow started off
toward the southwest, while the stern
drifted toward the east. Finally the
bow began to follow the outline of
the coast, keeping about a hundred
miles away, it's purse turning rapidly
southwark to correspond with the sharp
bend in the coast-line at New York bay.
On August 90 it was a hundred miles
east OF Cape Henlopen, having travelled
some four hundred miles from the spot
where the collision occurred.
In the meantime the stern, after start
ing off toward the east, turned north
ward, passed Boston a hundred miles
off the coast On July 9, and having ap-
preached within a few miles of Matini-
Gus island, sheered off to the west and
went ashore on Wells beach on August
7, the length of it's wandering course
being about four hundred and fifty
miles.
Why did two parts of the same ship
thus nov in nearly opposite directions
when cut asunder? The answer throws
an interesting light upon some of the
peculiarities of the ocean.
It appears that the shape of the stern
portion of the wrecked vessel was such
as to present a much larger area to the
wind than was presented by the bow
portion. The latter was comparative
ly little influenced by the wind, but
Obeyed the drift of the ocean water.
Between the gulf stream and the Amer
lean coast there is a current of relative
ly cold water flowing from the north,
and it was this current that carried the
bow of the ship down along the coast
toward the south.
The stern, on the other hand, rising
higher out Of the water, was seized by
the winds, whose general course was
northeast and north, and they pre-
vailed over the ocean current and sent
the stern drifting in a direction oppo-
site to that taken by its severed mate.
The sudden change in the course of
the stern, which sen it straight from
the vicinity of Matinicus to the shore
below Cape Porpoise, indicates, proba-
bly,, a corresponding change in the di-
rection of the wind.
These wanderings of the fragments
of a wreck were not, then, as lawless
as they seemed. There was, indeed, no
chance about the matter. Bow and
stern each obeyed it's controlling force,
so hat what at first sight seems to have
been a strange freak of the elements
appears after all, only as the inevitable
result Of the operation of natural laws.
Youths Companion.