We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
490
Radio Broadcast
miles outside of land and that didn't leave a beaten steamship track for more than twelve hours. The captain answered that there were days and days, even in the most crowded waters, in which he hadn't seen a ship of any kind, yet he knew there were scores of them within radio call — just beyond the horizon. Wouldn't it be wise to be able to summon help if help was needed? They laughed at the captain. He was getting old, they said, and was losing his skill.
The truth of the matter was that he had only wished to reinforce his skill ; and that very trip was to show the owners how easily a vessel might fill with water and sink, within the very sight of land, for all that the "skill" of an old seaman could do to prevent it.
The Tarok with her crew of captain, mate, steward, and two sailors, left Atlanta, Georgia, on February twenty-sixth, 1921, and turned her nose toward Porto Rico. She had as a cargo, fifty-two thousand feet of finished lumber — all ready to transform into native houses upon arrival at its island destination. Her holds were full and her deck was full — for her owners were the kind that under-manned and under-supplied their vessels, but overloaded them — and she struggled along under full canvas with as little life as if she were towing lead.
Six hours out and barely in the Gulf Stream, when they were descended upon by a furious storm. They bared their masts and pounded into it, each hour carrying them farther from their course and bringing them north with the sweep of the Stream. All night they were in the thick of it, and next morning discovered that they had sprung a leak. It was not a fast leak, but a slow, insistent one somewhere in the depths of the lumber-piled hold. They could not locate it, try as they would, and the water was steadily rising in the bilges. Inch by inch, it crept up the side of the hold, and inch by inch, the Tarok settled down. She labored heavily now and wouldn't answer her helm. As much canvas as possible was carried, but to no avail; the good old ship was caught and would have to stay that way until someone came along and rescued her.
Think of it! In this day and age, a vessel with a ten thousand dollar cargo forced to depend on chance for the saving of her cargo and the lives of her crew!
When the crew were flooded out of their quarters forward, and the captain and mate out of their quarters aft, the entire outfit gathered on the roof of the after deck-house to talk the situation over. As long as the weather
HER HOLDS WERE FULL AND HER DECK WAS FULL For her owners were the kind that undermanned and undersupplied their vessels but overloaded them