New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1921-07-12
Two Freigllters
Nearly Sunk by
Mystery Ships
BIG Schooner With No Light
Hits Morse Boat at Full
Speed and Vanishes Into
Night OFF Diamond Shoals
Second Vessel Escapes
Antwerp Skipper Tells of
Huge Stranger Changing
Course to Attack Him

Two steamships came here yester-
asv from foreign ports with reports
+sat they had barely escaped being
sunk by mysterious craft that bore
down upon them in the night without
lights and vanished into the darkness
IS quickly as they had appeared.
The tales of the shippers might have
seemed fantastic were it not for the
TACT that both are phlegmatic sailor
ren we'll supplied with cold facts and
syerse to romancing. Then, too. the
skipper OF the Norwegian freighter
Fort Morgan had his battered vessel
a. mute evidence of the drubbing she
had received from an unlighted sailing
vessel 400 miles down the coast.
When the Fort Morgan came into
port yesterday under her own steam
She attracted the attention of the en-
tire water front from Sandy Hook to
Pier in the East River, where she
was locked by the aid of tugs.
Raked by Huge Ship
It was thought at first that she was
some obsolete craft that had been used
as q target for navy battle practice.
but she was merely what was left after
colossal sailing ship had raked her
at night on Saturday, some sixty miles
southeast of the Diamond Shoals
Lightshp.
She had no funnel A mass of
vrenched and battered sheet metal
that once had been a funnel lay in
three sections on her deck Strewn
about the deck, which had been shaved
close by the ponderous bowsprit of
the unknown stranger, were fragments
Of metal ventilators. Mixed with this
was pile of splintered teak and
twisted pipes and stanchions, all OF
them reduced to kindling. The bridge
and wheelhouse looked like wreckage
in the wake of a tornado.
Captain Erling Hervig, level
headed Norwegian, was wide awake
when the schooner hit him and he re-
called it all yesterday in q matter of
fact way with no emotion.
ave were coming up the coast with q
cargo of fruit from Jamaica for the Di
Giorgio Fruit Company. Marios Bar
stead, my mate, was on the bridge at
the time, and Olaf Christensen, the
ouartermaster, was at the wheel. Both
Of them are good, sharp men. Erling
Haugsrug, q sailor, was on lookout duty
All our regulation lights were burning
clearly and we were slipping smoothly
through the water at full speed.
Stranger Carried No Lights
1.-THE night was clear, and if the
schooner had only displayed her sail
ing lights we could easily have given
her a plenty of room. We did not see
Ter until she was almost on top of US
NIL ~ u @.I
the port side, her long bowsprit rakins
US from stem to stern. 1t was her
clipper bow that saved us from being
cut in two.
"She climbed right up on us and
bent US over, then raked US but she
did not rip US up. She came at US on
the port side forward of the bridge
and swept her big boom aft with ter
rife speed, smashing everything in her
path. She bent US over to starboard
and, as she cleared, the stern veered
US around. l thought we were going
over on our beam ends but"we righted
quickly. The jolt put our dynamos
out of commission and smashed oul
steam steering gear. and we had te
steer to this port with a hand gear
that we rugged up when we found we
were not going to sink.
"We shouted and used our flashes tt
get the name of the fellow that hi
US, but he got away as quickly as hi
had come.
Il think the schooner that hit us was
a vessel of about l 400 tons and she
probably carried cargo of 5000
TONS"
Antwerp Ship Attacked
The other vessel reporting having hao
o. close call with the strangely man
eyed craft that carried no sailing
lights was the Croxteth Hall, which ar
rived here yesterday from Antwerp ant
hull. Captain Spence said he wa.
steaming westward at moderate speet
about 750 miles southeast Of Halifa,
when he encountered the stranger.
I'VE first sighted her dead ahead,
ne said. "She showed a stern ligh
and was running at reduced speed. W
soon caught up with her and were pre-
pairing TO give her wide berth whe
she suddenly swung out of her cours,
and came head-on for US. She dis