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THE MARINE REVIEW March, 1914 Capt. W. C. Iler, Steamer George G. Crawford I passed up by Fort Gratiot toh on Nov. 9, 3:15-A. M: At that time the wind was light west. Weather cloudy, but clear. At 10:20 A. M. I passed Pointe Aux Barques. The wind then was N. W., blowing hard. At 11 A. M. wind north and increasing in force. At 2 P. M. blowing a gale and increasing in force all the while, and by 4.2... M. the sea was running so high and wind so strong that we were not going ahead and were having trouble to keep head to wind. At 4:30 P. M. she blew around in trough of sea and I could not get her head to wind. again, so I put her before the wind and checked to slow speed, but had to keep ringing up half and full speed every few minutes to keep her out of the trough of the Seg. Could not see anything. Snowing very hard. 1 steered S. * HE, tor 3 hours, then south and took sounding every half hour with sounding machine. I ran back, steering south 50 miles by log and then tried to turn around and get head to wind, but she would not come any farther around than E. by N. one-half N. or West by North one-half N., and then go back to east or west and roll, and every time I. would: use the chadburn to signal the en- gineer I could tell she was labor- ing for some time, the wires would be so tight I could not move the lever. I got her before the wind again at 1 A. M.; Nov. 10, and. at that time we had 10 fathoms of water and I realized the fact that we must be below Sanilac and we either had to get turned around and stop going south or go ashore, so I had the mate use the hand lead and I backed her full speed until the mate said her headway was stopped. I then ordered the mate to drop anchor. Port one dropped and only gave her the chain gradually, so as to favor chain as much as possible, and when she came around in trough of sea we gave her the other an- chor and all the chain, but they were only on the bottom about five minutes when they let go. The port chain let go first about 50 ft. from anchor and starboard chain parted 60 or 70 ft. from the inboard end, losing practically all of starboard chain. That happened at 1:10 A. M. on Monday morning, Nov. 10, both anchors gone, a blinding snow storm and blowing 7s or 80 miles an hour from the north and getting down into a pocket at the end of the lake, and unable to turn around and head away from danger: I decided I would keep trying to turn around until she went on the beach and then I would feel as if I had done my part and done all any other man could have done to save his ship, but at 2 A. M. the. wind shifted from north to northwest and lull came with it and I got her head to wind and heading north and started back up the lake and at noon on Monday it had stopped snowing and I was back up abreast of Pointe Aux Barques. I tried to make an ex- amination of her top sides and deck, but on account of so much snow and ice on deck and sides I could only see a little here and there which looked as if the rivets were loosened up a little, so the next morning going up Soo river I had the hot water hose put on and cleaned off the ice and then we could see lots of loose rivets and open joints amidships. Went to the Soo, got two anchors, but they are too small for the Craw- ford. When we were running be- fore the sea it was so large that once in a while she would fill up aft and go over top of cabin and down through skylight into en- gine room. Broke windows in after end of cabin and filled the dining room and_ kitchen with water and cook's room also. They. could not stay in their room. Had to move out into engineer's room. The sea washed our box for soiled linen away. It was a box lashed to after end of after cabin and broke second mate's chadburn aft. During the worst of the storm our electric whistle gave out, wires wore off in cargo hold, where they go through bulkhead and I could not use the hand lever, for it would be so tight at times and slack at times that I had to put the deck watch in boiler house to blow the whistle for 14 hours. It snowed for 26 hours, during which time we had not been able to see a thing, but were being guided entirely by the sounding machine, which gave us excellent service. Capt. W. J. Hunt, Steamer A. C. Dinkey Passed up at the Soo Friday, Nov. 7, at 11 A. M. There were southwest storm warnings there when we went up, and one of the linemen on the dock stated that they had been up for about half an hour. There were no storm warning notices in the canal of- fice. We went up by Whitefish at about 2:30 and southwest storm warnings were flying there. We went on our course to Manitou and I had just taken a two-point bearing off of Stannard Rock when the wind began blowing a gale from the north. I pumped her up full of water, putting about 4 tt. in her dark room and 14 ft. in her peak, filled her after peak and 4 i. i her. cargo hold. 1 ran for about 23 hours north by east, the wind being north by east, Head into it. It had been snowing heavy all this time, could not see anything. Not knowing how far I had gotten, I turned around and ran back for three hours, and then turned her head into it again, north by east. It took us about 10 minutes to get her turned around. I went that way until about three in the morn- ing, when the snow cleared up. When it cleared up I could see the. Slate Islands, and estimate we were about 20 to 25 miles south of them. This was about 8 o'clock Sunday morning. 'The wind hav- ing moderated some, I then start- ed On my. way for Duluth. We had our whistle going continuously for 25 hours during the storm, and on account of the wind and snow I do not think I heard it once. She made good weather of it, in fact, there were very few of the crew that lost any sleep at all. The sea ran very high and I esti- mate that the wind blew from 65 to 70 miles an hour. We did not break a window even.