The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-04-19
0FF|CERS' PAY IS LITTLE FOR WORK Veteran of the Seas Asserts Records Are Faxed by
 Commanders Men on Big Steamships Forced to Work Twenty-four Hours
 Without Food

The Man on the Bridge" is the title of an article by Charles Terry Delaney, veteran transatlantic steamship officer, published in the Atlantic Monthly of May, 191O It cnarges that captains of liners are overworked, sometimes being on duty for from twenty to seventy hours at a stretch. and always underpaid, that they took chances by running at inor- dinate speed in the iceberg region; that they made possibly dangerous snort cuts away from the prescribed lanes of ocean travel in order to make records and advertise their ships for the owners, that they faked their log books and were guilty of other bad practices. This got a rise out of so many steamships agents and officers that MT. Delaney had to come back in the August Atlantic of that year with a letter re-enforcing and supply. ing more evidence for his former statements.
 Until some fine vessel with a pre- cious cargo is sent to the bottom through collision these things I be- lieve will not be rectified, ,'~Capt. De- laney said in his first article. "It is only by good luck that this has not happened already, but luck will change some day. Who will pay the piper then? Not the worn out man on the bridge, I hope.''
 The British authorities, Delaney pointed out. demand that man shall be on the bridge Of his vessel at all times during fog. He wrote:
 "I have seen master of 60 years of age Or thereabout stand on a bridge for over seventy hours with eyes that were useless through strain and hearing impaired by the constant shrieking of the fog whistle. Is it right to expect such a man to com> mand in case of emergency. In jus tice to the master and the passengers
 should not the command be handed over to the chief officer? I have of ten noticed passengers looking up at the bridge to see if the master is there. If they catch a glimpse of him they gn away, thinking that all is we'll A fallacy!'
 Delaney was. reminded of a marrow escape he had six years before when passenger list. The ship was in the ice track and Delaney after standing on the bridge for many hours, peer ing into the fog decided to call the master and start the whistle. His story went on:
 'The responsibility was his, not mine. But before this could be done almost alongside the ship was an fce- berg towering up about 300 feet. The ship passed within twenty feet of it going at the rate of twenty-one knots; had there been a submerged trailer att would have been ripped open. Cold as I was at the time I went colder still and vowed that I would never again take such risks. Had the whistle been sounded it is possible that warning of the berg's approach echo. Needless to say I called the master after the danger had passed and kept mum over the affair too.
 But sailors are forgetful creatures. The very next voyage we were going along at the. rate of about twenty where the tracks cross. With hardly a moments warning the lights of an- other vessel-the Deutschland, twen- ty-three knots-hove in sight about an eighth of mile away dead ahead. There was just time for us both to hard a port, swing clear ana pass within a hundred feet of each other. Fright number two completely cured us of any disposition to hang on in the future"
 Delaney said that the big boats of- ten go full speed ahead in fogs. He went on:
 But full ahead across the ice track is a different proposition. Under no circumstances is full speed Justifiable there Collision with an iceberg is quite a different matter from cOlli- sion with a fisherman. Though it is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy the weight of a berg. yet when one remembers that accord ing to the laws of specific gravity only one-ninth of the weight-notI heights above water, the results of the collision would be greatly in it's favor. I once heard a woman pas | senger ask the master what would happen if our ship struck the iceberg | then in view. Madam he replied, | the berg would go sailing on as if nothing had happened ''
 Naronic of the White Star line and the Huronia of the Allan line, which 1 disappeared, foundered after collisions 1 with icebergs. But he added that he | had never been with a master who did not slow down in fog when cross | ing the ice regions.
 Delaney accused vessels of going | farther north than they should in their passage between the Old World | and the New in order to make rec | ords, because the northern track is much shorter than the southern. He said there are a few conscientious men who do cover the whole official distance, but that they are in very | small minority. He declared that the Mauretania's record of an average of 26OS knots for the entire trip, which was the talk of the steamship men and travellers at the time Delaney | was writing, was faked. Her time |
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