War Prize?

Peter Kreet  "Into the Swell"

At the end of wars comes the distribution of spoils. The Union Steamship Co. acquired a former German submarine supply ship that had spent her time rearming u -boats in the north Atlantic. Whether it was a satisfactory prize remained questionable as she would roll and pitch at the same time resulting in a high rate of sea sickness. This was caused by the down sizing of the propellers for economic reasons. In addition she was fitted with a strange steering system for her twin rudders. This consisted of two buttons instead of a normal ship's wheel, the helmsman would push down the right button (starboard) to go right and the left (port) to go left. This was all very well in calm weather but proved to be a nightmare in heavy seas.

The ship was fairly small, only 705 tons and when I joined her as an ordinary seaman in midwinter for a run down to Hobart it was only out of necessity, I need a job. The weather was foul and the down sizing of the propeller made her hard to hold a course even in good weather let alone in a storm. I was on the midnight watch and had to crawl up to the bridge hanging onto a rope as the vessel was so unstable. The storm was building up and already the seas where several metres high. As we slid down one side of of the swell the wall of water on the other side of the trough kept rising higher and higher until the swells' top was way above the ship's mast. We were ziz zazing down and holding our breath coming up, just praying we wouldn.t broadside to the on coming sea. The steering had to be corrected by pushing the opposite button to bring the rudders back to midships, unlike a normal ship's wheel that is self correcting. Trying to hold a course proved near impossible. The second mate had ordered the watch to put out a sea anchor ( a canvas parachute item that held the bow into the wind), but to no avail.

All ready the well deck was under a metre of water and the lashings on a number of drums  on deck were coming undone. Men had to lash them selves to the safety rail before venturing out to try to secure them. Even so two seamen finished up with broken. Bass Straight can be one of the roughest stretches of water in the world due to its shallow nature. All .we could hear was the piecing wail of the wind and crashing thunder of the sea hitting the ship.from every direction. Everyone was in some state of seasickness and no doubt wondered why they were here. I most certainly did and gave serious thought to call this career quits. Some how after twenty four hours of just hanging on we limped into Hobart and the friendly arms of the locals.