Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-27
Most Ticklish Part of an
Ocean Greyhound's Voyage.
STRANGE ACCIDENTS
THAT HAVE COME TO LINERS AT
END OF THE RUN.
Steamer That Ran Over Tug and
Drowned Her Crew Without Know
ing It--Pilots' Gray Hairs.
Written for The Star.

Written for The Star.
When the Ii, 0oO-tonner hurled across the
Atlantic by her 81 900 horse power working
at top speed has drowned white Sandy
Hook in her shouldering rollers, threaded
the hidden ship channel. slipped by Liberty
Island and lodged five-score of perils from
the Hudson rivers marine throng, then
comes her real danger.
For a space. while she lies fronting her
berth in dock her machinery stops. In that
moment she becomes helpless. inert
thing. With her power gone, her Storage
way is gone. All the engineering skill
aboard her is powerless. The monster is
in the grip Of the tide and the wind.
She may have so little motion on her that
only the trained nautical eye can see her
move at all. But $1,000 tons need not move
fast to destroy or be destroyed. Let that
church-lka bow just play touch-and-go with
the great pier, and spiles and rafters may
burst into ponderous ruin, or the smooth
iron plates of the big ship buckle and tear
like tin roof before a summers gale.
When she is moving thus, with inertia
doing the pushing, no power on earth can
stop her. If she gldes, ever SO gently, into
"a moored ship, she will cut it in two a
knife breaks the shell of an egg; or she may
meet miserable, puny ten-inch spike and
tear herself up as if she had been rent by
exploding powder No matter how fast the
propeller may whirl then, she can be stop
ped before the damage is done. Long before
the huge red blades can take hold of the
7yater and control the ship, she will have
drifted the fatal few feet and be a ruin
a murderer, smitten by disaster within a
few feet of her goal after having sprung
across 1900 miles of sea without loosenlng
strut a rivct.
OF the thousands who the docking
of a big ship daily, few, if any. realize
hot r1,.yr a,Ain .fr hot
demands as fine nautical skill and as much
nerve as the stiftest tussle with Il half gale
in the green mid-Atlantic. For the passen-
gers. the run is over with the stopping
of the screw. For the Ioungers on the
water front or the multitudes the ferry
boats. there is only the sight of a great
vessel, motionless and helpless in the
stream, with half a dozen tugs snorting and
snutting at her TANKS and quarters.
A Ticklish Job.
There is no noise, no excitement-scarcely
an order. But where that black mass lies
quiet in the water, 10000 square feet of
submerged hull are being pressed upon by
a tidal current racing five miles an hour
and every wind that stirs has a structure
forty feet high and 900 long to blow on-a
vast, floating Vane wonderfully obedent to
it's touch; for the ocean liner that scorns
a twO-reef breeze and steps triumphant
over the gray-backed seas when her long
limbed engines are at work, is sensitive
to wind and water when her shaft is mo-
tionleSs as any floating chip
There is a little legal mountain of dam
age suits and decisions in the marine courts
of the United States to testify how tickIsh
a Job it is to dock the Atlantic's giant ferry
boats. During the half hour required to
push. pull and coax the unwieldy monster
into her narrow berth there moments
when responsibility flashes like St. Elmo's
fire from man to man alighting on captain,
pilDT dock master. chief
engineer or on tugbOat captain in the wink
OF an eye. A slipping hawser, the slant of
a tugboats nose, a flirt of the screw or
little, pretty silvery tide-Tip unseen by the
men on the high bridge OF the ship. and
there may be bill for enough thousands
of dollars to swallow the profits OF half
dozen voyages.
In that simple slow process, so unexcit-
ing to the spectators that only lazy per-
sons have the patience to see it through
the unforeseen may happen at any time.
The ship may be all but berthed with the
hands actually getting ready to swing the
boarding stage to her deck, when the part
ing Of a hawscr will free her stern and set
her across the dock basin TO smash into
the next ship, a floating earthquake. That
has happened.
or She may be hanging on with might
and main to a spring line passed from her
bow 10 the biggest and toughest spite IN
the big, tough dock. while the engines are
working full speed ahead TO bring her stern
foremost as al liners are locked, and all
that big tough dock will be creaking and
singing under the strain, while on snip ana
pier all hands stand clear of bitt and spile,
between which, hauled to its utmost limit,
uuivers the mighty tour-inch Manila haW-
ser when all at once, with sharp boom
like n four-inch gun. that four-inch hawser
Darts its ends whipping fercely through
The air amid a smoke of unraveed fiber,
and a few sharp eyes Will have seen a
human form hurled through the air, strike
the water Imply like a mass of rags ana
disappear. That has happened
The Minnehaha's Strange Disaster.
There was the Minnehaha, one of the
monsters with her keel in the dark more
than thirty feet below the surface and
bridge so high that captain and pilot, stand
ing there. looked down on the rest of the
marine world like men looking down into
the street from a high roof.
The Minnehaha making her berth
beautifully heading for it on a line that
was true TO the fraction of an inch. She
belonged to line which held the plot wto
brought her i'll from sea responsible 1or
docking her lie had gauseo "lho anu tiGe
to a nicely.
A big tug had its nose against her star
hoard bow and was pushing with all It's
might to get the sharp Prov around ana
out of the tide Suddenly she yielded ana
the pilot ordered the tug 70 run around TO
the ship's port bow. take the hawser ana
haul. which would have swung her DO" III
dock. ,.o,
Word was passed that the tug had obeyed
orders Pilot and captain on the prldse
were far too high to see anything SO close
under their bows That high iron tower
of n ship blotted out even so big craft as
n barbor tug So, when word came that
the tug had gone TO its station, the plot
ordered one revolution of the big ships
screw. 1t was barely enough to make a
little spit in the water. 1t could hardly
he said that IT moved the Mnnehaha-it
stirred her a bit, that was all
Slowly, almost imperceptibly she ftoated
the few feet that she had to go. And sud
denly the captain, who had stepped TO the
mort side of the bridge. said sharply:
Gods! Pilot. what is that?
The pilot ran over and looked down
There. deep in the green water, wavering
phantom-lile by the shadow of the great
keel he saw and recognized 1t.
Good Lord. captain, We've gone over
the tug!' said he, turning white.
And so they had. They had overrun
powerful harbor tug, capsized her, pressed
her down with their great brute of a ship
and drowned three of her crew without
ever knowing Il.
In the trials of the many suits that sprang
out of this. it was established that the tug