The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1900-03-03
Arctic weather on the Atlantic.

Seldom indeed has an ocean liner entered
the port of New York in more pictures
que condition than the Saale dld When
she passed the Battery. on heT way 10
hel. pier in Hoboken, few hours later
Tons of ice covered her forward DECKS
while aloft the shrouds and backstays
of the North German ocean liner were
like ropes of shining glass.
Chief Officer Henry Schaeffer, good
looking. ruddy-faced, blue-eyed Tueton,
who is a fine navigator and every men
a sailor, told the following story or the
trim in his own modest way, looking at
it from his standpoint as simply one OK
the many stormy ones he had made:
1--WE left Southampton on Wednesday
night. January 24th, said he, "and arflV-
ed at Sandy Hook LiShtship early on fep'
ID. Almost as sooh as we cleafeu tiie
English channel we began to encounter
strong head winds and high seas. or
course the ship did the usual amount OF
nitching but she was able to make very
good Roadway, excepting in some OF the
days. Although she shipped some water,
it was not until January 3lSt that we
struck cold weather. Then for two days
we had a pretty hard time. Every d1op
of spray that came on deck froze soiiu
on deck and on the rigging. Up on the
foremost as high as the crows nest,
the bridge deck was a couple OF feet tnick
with ice 1t took gang of twenty-five
men nearly a day to clear it away alter
we arrived.
I'm such severe weather we do not
make the lookout men stay In the crows
nest on the foremost. If we did we should
have to hoist them up and down, for they
could never have climbed that icy ladder.
We keep lookout man in bad weather
%1,o r;1 rbo ret and
third officers and the second and fourth
officers stand four-hour watch together,
and tell you this was about the coolest
time l have ever seen NO there. When
the ship is pitching hard, and the spray.
driven by the gale, flies high over the
bow it strikes the bridge, and our faces
sometimes. Our bodies are protected some
by the weather cloths: but sailorman
learns to take every kind of weather that
comes along, be it cold or warm, ice or
fog, rain or snow.
.Of our crew of one hundred and ninet2
men, eighty comprise the engineers staff
continued Mr. Schaeffer. I'VE have on
deck twenty men in the port and the
same number in the starboard watch;
there are also couple of boatswains
in each watch to take charge of the
men This is a good ship in all weather,
and as fine a sea boat as 1 was ever
aboard Of OF course, in a time like the.
last few days, the deck is no place for
the passengers, and they find it much
more greeable in the warm cabin when
westerly gale is blowing and the ship
is plunging into it as hard as her engines
can drive her. should say the wind
averaged force of eight all the way
across. That means it was blowing at
about fifty miles an hour most OF the
time
The steamship Erna. Captain Bruhn,.
which arrived from sJamaica on February
1st. with cargo consigned to the Tweed
lie Trading Company of this city, was
quite as badly Iced up as the Saale.
1t required nearly full day to clear.
the ice tlom the decks and boats of
the Clyde liner New York, which also
arrived on February 1st, from San Domin-
go.-L!eutenant ]. c. Summers, in Coll
3Her's Weekly.