The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1897-01-10
The American Bark Fresno
Caught in a Heavy
Typhoon.
On Her Beam Ends for Hours.
The Captain and Crew Got
Ready to Die.
Her Rudder Broken, and Water Getting
Into the Hold All Hope
Seemed Gone.

The American bark Fresno from Kobe,
Japan, for Puget Sound in ballast, had a
! terrible time of it during the thirty five
| days run and was compelled to put in
here yesterday in distress for repairs.
! She was caught in a typhoon and carried
away the foreyard, topsailyard, and port
/ rail- Almost all the sails were blown
from the bolt ropes and the rudder
gudgeon carried away, leaving the vessel
unmanageabe. She was thrown on her
beam ends and the wster covered the lee
side of the matches. Everybody on board
thought the vessel was going down and
many of the crew said their last prayer
on earth. ij4
The water began to leak through the
strained deck into the hold and the
Fresno began to settle. The master warned
the crew that they had not fifteen minutes
to live and all gave up hope. There was
a momentary change in the weather and
the gale struck the bark from fresh quar-
ter an put her on an even keel After
some clever maneuvering she was got be-
fore the wind, unmanageable, but still
safer refuge than she had been ten minutes
before.
When the lull came the men went to
work 10 rig a jury rudoer. While the
spanker boom was Deing prepared nash
of lightning shivered the mainyard and
several of the men had narrow escape:
After many difficulties the jury rudder
was finally fixed, and the Fresno worked
her way through succession OF gales to
San Francisco After striking the typhoon
on December IL she leaked continuously
an inch an hour, and every day the men
had to take trick at the pumps IN order
to keep her clear.
II have been thirty years at sea-" said
CAPTAIN Underwood yesterday, "and
never ran into anything in the shape of a
gale that could equal that typhoon IN
fury. The thermometer fell to Is. 90, and
as have never used the telltale since 1t
is there to tell its own story.
1--WE left Kobe on December in ballast.
From the first day out we had nothing
but heavy weather, and on December II
in latitude 81 north, longitude 162 east,
we ran into it. Sail after sail was blown
away, the decks were full of water and
everything movable was dashing from
side to side, making it dangerous for the
men 10 move around. The cabin and fore
castle were flooded, and when the vessel
went on her beam ends thought our last
hour had come. / never expected that
the vessel would last fifteen minutes, but
just In the nick of time there was change
and l was able TO get her before the wind.
with disabled rudder and the bark
leaking, We were in a predicament.
ordered the men to unship the spanker
boom. and while they were doing that |
had the carpenter fix up some heavy tim
tiers in the shape of fan. 1t was the
upper gudgeon (the metal eye or socket
attached to the sternpost to receive the
pintle of the rudder), so to the upper part
of the rudder l fixed the fan and then
connected it with the spanker boom by
means of ropes and pulleys. The boom
had in the meantime been securely fas-
tened to the deck and the fan fastened as
tightly to the hull as the circumstances
would allow. 1t was while this work was
being done that the lightning shivered our
mainyard into splinters.
with this continuance 1 found we
could steer fairly well in com paratively
rough weather, but when the blow was
hard one we had to run before it, as the
rudder threatened at times TO tear the
stern out of the ship. The only time we
had anything like fair weather was DUR
ing the last three days when we were off
San Francisco A little south OF Point
Reyes / sighted the tug Fearless and at
once signaled that wanted a tow. Cap