The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-08-30
How 1t DaIlied With a
Man on Watch.
NEARLY SWAMPED A SHIP.
Chased Man and Boat Over the
Port Rail.
THEN BROUGHT THE MAN BACK.
Depositlng Him Gently on the Main
Deck-The Boat Went all
to Pieces.
NEARLY SWAMPED A SHIP
THEN BROUGHT The MAN BACK,

The other day the American ship
Llewellyn j. Morse came into port look
ing battered and forlorn. She had one of
the toughest passages on record and was
at one time entirely submerged by what
appeared to be an immense tidal wave.
which boarded the snip on the port side
fore and aft. The great comber rose out
of a troubled sea. and dwarfed by COM
pariaon the pillows that had been dashed
into dangerous seas by humming south
west gale.
And ''Tom," the forecastle hand, met
with strange adventure. He was on
watch when the extraordinary hill of
water covered the vessel He took COM
plete turn around the foremost. was
washed overheard. washed back again.
and finally rolled into the scuppers with
out having suffered so much as scratch
1t ia perhaps the first instance on record
that a sailor got full of water and it did
not kill him.
Il have been to sea for twenty five years
and l never saw a wave like that one" eX-
planned seaman of the Morse.
ut actually buried the vessel all except
her sparS, and the strangest thing of all
was that the man on lookout was sent
chasing over the starb0aTd rail with a dis
abled longboat rushing him. then landed
back on deck without an injury.
did you ever hear of man being sat
on by a tidal wave? never did before in
my life.
when we sailed from Baltimore we
had fair weather for about three weeks
From 80 to 90 south gales bothered US 8
whole lot and it seemed as if we never
would strike a streak of light winds or even
moderate gales.
sit was blow, blow all the time, with a
numbering ship under foot and wet deck
planks. Waters pouring like whipped
cream out of black-noZzled scupper- oles,
mere mist of straining canvas aloft, and
above that cold gray sky, out of which
white specks of snow sifted their way and
fell upon the ship like fine powder.
with the bleak cape hard by. our star
board bow crowned with dull vapors that
assumed most natural shapes as the breeze
knit them about the rocks and cold,
whte-caDped sea to port, we rounded the
Horn and hoped to make fair passage to
San Francisco.
MAY II was an unlucky day-one of
those periods in sailors life when Jack
thinks he smells danger and says so when
he turns in below.
"Heavy seas boarded US several times
and swept the forward house almost clear
of the main deck. Our two boats that
were lashed to the skids on top of the
house were crushed together and cayed in
like paper match-boxes in the hands of a
strong man.
"The accommodation gangway was
swept away, the port bulwarks bent over,
stove In and drifted away in kindling-
wood, and the galley so filed with water
| that il ran out al the windows and f1Oated
off the smohestack.
This storm did not end our misery.
| The bad weather kept heading US off and
preventing US from making any kind of a
passage.
"One night we were talking in the fore
castle about men lost at sea- and this
fellow Tom. or whatever his name is, who
was on lookout when the big wave
dropped on US, said that he had always
been lucky and had never come near
losing his life when on sea voyage.
Strange to say the following day he
met with the peculiar accident l am about
to describe.
at was June 6. We had just COM
chance OF US making San Francisco in
good season when the glass dropped bit
and the sea rose higher
II don't remem berjust how it was done,
but we sank into the trough of big cross
sea, and 10 an instant there seemed to rise
out of the water Oh the port side great
wall of dull green. Up, up it rose until
the gale caught lts crest and claimed it as
spray. which fell like a shower of rain
over the Morse.
Then forward like charging column
and later with laundering roar it came
down on the ships decks with deafen-
ing crash.
not move until it was too late. He was
lifted from his feet simultaneously with
the washing away of one of the disabled
boats, and man and craft went drifting far
to the starboard of the ship, were both
washed back. swirled about the foremost
and while the sailor was gently lowered
to the deck by the rapidly receding waters
the boat scudded over the rail and out to
sea.
THE great wave did big damage to the
ship. then escaped. 1t was fortunately
the last of the ocean monsters with which
we had to deal and we made port there
after without further mishaps."