The Portland daily press., 1900-08-29

A Cowboy Conquered the Three
Winged Iron Monster That Would
Have Wrecked the Ship After the
Crew Had Failed to Subdue 1t.
During the gales of last winter more
than 20 tramp steamers were lost. Ten
were never heard from after leaving
port. More than $50 broke their shafts.
In over a score of instances they also
lost their propellers and were saved from
being overwhelmed by sea anchors, which
held their heads to the combers, and a
liberal use of oil, which smoothed down
the crests Some of the underballasted
tramps from British ports, which in
pleasant weather make the voyage to
Sandy Hook in 10 days, We're 35 days
and 40 days breastng the great winter
gales. Two Of them rolled their tunnels
out, and another spent 10 days either at
tempting to make her way through the
crested pillows or wallowing in the
trough. Cliflike waves, breaking in cat
aracts over her weather bow or leaping
aboard amidships, carried away all her
lifeboats. She rolled at an angle of near
ly 40 degrees, the rolling period being -
or 10 times minute, for hours and hours
together During these 10 days the
weary skipper found when he had a
chance to make an observation, that the
ship had made 140 knots leeway IN
this tumultuous period very few of the
officers were able to get any sleep, except
the merest caS@aps. The food was hard
ly fit to eat through bad cooking, the
cook being unable to work properly, and
the water, impregnated by the searching
brine from invading seas and spoondrift,
4 l. ~ 4I.a
The perils of the underballasted tramp
steaning to the westward with head
gales flashing the seas into fury, furnish
the marine reporters of nearly every At
lantic seaboard city every winter with
columns of vivid stories The tramp
skipper is undaunted by the appalling
dangers of his underpaid profession. The
business of following the sea is the only
one be knows anything about, and he
must either risk starvation on shore or
boldly face the manifold dangers Of a
rover of the oceans of the world, which
little notes the loss of a tramp steamship
here and there. When q tramp skipper
loses his job-he never gives it up-there
are q dozen or more applications for it
despite its perils and its meager pay.
All the smaller tramps that visit ports
without facilities for providing or repair
ing machinery carry, usually on the main
deck aft or between decks, spare pro-
peller. There have been several instances
IN which tramps with these extra propel-
lers have just escaped destruction in
heavy weather. A little British tramp
that came into New York from the Med
iterranean several years ago had a spare
propeller made fast between decks aft.
One night, when she was within a few
days of Sandy Hook, plunging and roll
ing IN a cyclone, the propeller broke from
its lashings and began laundering about
the deck. The only illumination aboard
ship was by means of Pickering kerosene
lamps. The skipper and several of his
crew went down into the gloomy space
between decks and made an effort to
check the giraffe fight Of the three wing
ed iron monster.
They were armed with wooden and iron
bars and pieces of dunnage, which they
tried to use as levers. 1t was difficult to
keep the ships head up Ia the swell. She
persisted in dropping off, and every time
she rolled the demon of a propeller rum
bled across the steel deck to port or star
board, threatening to smash through the
ships side. The skipper sent one of his
men to the bridge to tell the officer in
charge to try to keep the ships head up
the movements of the propeller being less
dangerous while the ship was pitching
but she wouldn't answer her helm. The
mass Of metal stopped at times just long
enough to allow the skipper and his adj
yenturesome men to get within reach Of
it. Then it stirred like a sentient thing
and appeared to spring at them They
saved themselves from injury by jumping
aside or leaping over it.
At last. as the ship lurched heavily to
port, the propeller whirled down the in
clined deck and smashed against the side.
One of its blades went through a plate.
It hung for q moment against a rib of
the ship then loosening itself as tie
ship rolled and heeled to starboard, it
bowled athwartship again. A fountain
of sea water spurted through the hols
made by the propeller blade as the tramp
rolled to port again, and, the propeller
slid that way. A few more holes in Il )
ships side would have caused her to take
in so much water that she would have
been in danger Of laundering, and the
skipper began to wish that the propeller
had gone all the way through and drop
ped into the sea.
There was one passenger aboard the
AAdhlp5 q SNVu1 @VuA6 ASAAON WV He.u ~
perience as a cowboy on the Texas plains.
He had heard the booming Of the spare
propeller, and he went to the skipper and
volunteered to check it in it's mad course.
At first it revealed itself only dimly to
him, a huge, batlike shadow, under tAe
faint and unsteady glow Of the kerosene
lamps. After the cowboy had become
somewhat accustomed to the gloom and
had spent a few moments lodging the
propeller he took a asso, which he made
of a hawser, and with the unerring aim
of an expert bull puncher he rung one of
the blades with the moose. He made a
turn with the other end around q winch,
about amidships, and the propeller was
subdued. Then the skipper and his men
fell upon it as if it were a living thing,
and with beams and bars and chains and