Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1908-02-14
THE NIGHTMARE
OF THE SEA.
narrowing Accounts of DANGEROUS
DereIictS.

/
DerelictS.
Fifteen hundred masterless ships are
lhelplessly adrift in all the Seven Seas,
a graveyard fleet, menacing the worlds
shipping with peril no foresight car
avoid. And every one of them tells an
easy tale of ocean tragedy. Who can
forget his first glimpse of one of these
ship wraiths, sinister and horrible, a
battered hulk swinging this way and
that, with splintered mast stumps point
ing mutely to Heaven, while huge
white capped seas swept over and half
submerged the moss green decks? The
terror of the seas, with every seaman s
hand against them, and all the mari
time nations devising means for their
destructionl
Once the well known Porto Rico
liner was nine days overdue,
and Captain Hunt, of the Government
photographic office, showed no fewer
than nine of these special ships, paint
ed in red ink, on the chart, and all con-
verging into the steamers course, in
evitable as fate. The hull of one was
six feet under water. Another, a Nor
wegian bark, the Wellington had eli her
sails set, and not a person on board,
careering crafty in the track of trade
just another of the ships that make no
haven. And our Atlantic ports alone
furnished about twenty such last year,
involving the loss Of nearly three hun
drad lives.
Now what has happened to these
ships-well found, well manned, sailing
frequented seas and that often enough
in fair weather? Sometimes their sto-
ry is known, but again their fate may
be creepy mystery, striking awe to
the soul of every sailor.
1t may be fire. as in the case of the
big four-masted Marpesia, Captain
Jenson, New York for Cette, in South
east France, naphtha laden. On Christ
mas day eleven of the starboard watch
went below at dawn-never to come UP
again, for the bo'sn's pipe was sudden
ly drowned by a roaring explosion that
! followed low rumble. The entire for
ward section of the ship burst into fu-
rious flame as foremast, decks and car
go shot one hundred and twenty feet in
air. Debris rained kissing on the sea,
as the thunderous wall of flame swept
after. Pitiful streams of water were
shot into that awful crater of blazing
naphtha. The men fought well, but at
length were forced to build plank ex-
tension thirty feet over the stern,
where they retreated with singeing
hair and blistering faces. Here they
crouched all night, while the roar
ing hulk plunged on, lighting up
the sea for miles. Before dawn the
Danish steamer Gallia broke through
the smoke fog; the tortured men leaped
into the sea for safety, leaving the
Marpesia to burn to the waters edge
and become dangerous derelct of the
seas.
Against such danger the mariner is
helpless. Rocks are betrayed by surf
and soundings; lighthouse beams, sirens
and buoys all proclaim various perils of
the mariner; throbbing engines tell of
another ships proximity, and even the
dread iceberg is revealed by its ghastly
radiance and sudden frigidity of the
air, but the derelict is not foreseen,
gives no warning until it wounds yes
sci to its death. What tragedies may
not be attributed to these creeping
corpses of fine vessels? And not minor
tragedies of barks and tramps, but the
destruction of great liners-the big
White Star Naronic, for instance. tits
only few years since this superb steam
er of five thousand tons left Liverpool
with crew of seventy-four under Cap
tain Roberts, who had already made
half-a-dozen trips in her and found her
a grand ship. She had cost six hun
dred thousand dollars, and had ten
water tight compartments. But she
was never seen or heard of again-just
a dark mystery of the sea. The under
writers at Lloyd's shook their heads
and murmured, "Derehcts," and none
but seaman knows how deadly these
are, especially when they are filled
with lumber.
Let an abandoned vessel be light OF
in ballast, and mayhap a steamer will
cut right through her, but to hit waite,
logged derelict upheld by a cargo OF
sodden timber is practically the same as
striking a rock. Nor will the first VIC
tim be the last, for these staggering
buccaneers of the sea live for years ant
travel half way round the world, deal
ing death and destruction.
Take the case of the thirty-fve hun
dred ton Dunmore, Cardiff to Newport
News with coal. She broke her shaft il
mid-ocean during a furious blizzard ant
was abandoned by the crew six hundred
miles from Cape Cod. The Dunmor
was then leaking terribly, her maste
thought her about to founder. But no
she lived on and was sighted by no les
than twenty-five steamers. By som
this prize, worth seventy thousand dol
lars, was towed. She was boarded b
five and set on fire by one. Then tn
Dunmore vanished, although five Brit
ish warships went out from Bermud
to destroy her, well knowing what
peril she was to navigation. Think @
this big iron steamer, water logge
and on her beams end, with three thou.