# Port Line Drama



## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

Port Line Drama


During the 1960’s a report was published in the now long defunct “Auckland Star” newspaper of a drama at sea concerning a Port Line ship that had sailed from Auckland bound for the UK via Panama. 
The story was published long after the event and was in the words of the man involved when he related his own account of the incident to provide a chilling but excitingly brave story that I wish I could again access but all my attempts to locate the details on the net or via News files have been fruitless. It now occurs to me that the Ships Nostalgia forum would be the ideal place to lodge this thread in a hope that some one else has heard the story, maybe a Port line Man, a crew member of the actual ship or perhaps the man himself.

To the best of my memory the story went something like this;

The ship sailed from Auckland and a couple of days out she neared the tropical latitudes and was steaming through an oily swell in humid misty weather. The second Mate on the 12 to 4 night watch was relieved by the First Mate at 4am, both were fastidious navigators and after discussing the course and conditions the watch was handed over and the Second Mate asked that the First to be sure to wake him for breakfast at 8am when he came off watch himself
The second then went for his usual walk around the ship before turning in for a few hours and as he rounded the stern the ship’s slow roll and the damp steel decking saw him lose his footing and overboard he went. With the ship deserted except for the bridge and engine room watches no one knew that he was missing and no concern would be raised until 8 am when the First Mate came off the 4 to 8 and went to shake him for breakfast.

The man in the water quickly worked this out and as he trod water in a thankfully warm sea he calculated that the First would go to his cabin and find his bunk untouched, he might ask the steward if he had remade the bed then he would ask those around him if they had seen the Second Mate around the ship. He assumed that this checking might take half an hour at the most before the alarm was raised and if the ship turned around immediately and retraced its course he had to survive a total of 9 hours before the ship arrived back in the area.

The second Mate must have been a man of steel, guts, fortitude or just plain level headed and a good swimmer and I recall the article airing his thoughts, plans and beliefs etc but above all his faith in his shipmate’s navigational skills to work a course back along the outgoing plots to present a reasonable chance of picking him up.

With this faith in mind he set about ensuring his own survival, he kicked off his shoes, took off his trousers knotted the leg ends then waved them through the air to entrap some buoyancy that lasted for a few minutes and with experimentation he managed to get the makeshift lifebuoy to last long enough to allow him to rest from his constant treading and as I remember the article, he tells the reader just what was going through his mind, how he tries not to think of predatory sharks, of the ship not turning back and of a thousand negatives that most of us would have foremost in our minds.

Aboard ship the reaction to his absence from breakfast saw the rescue plan evolve exactly as he hoped it would. They did go about and meticulously plot a return course allowing for all the variances that played a part such as tide changes, currents wind etc and by unerring navigation skills, by the grace of God or just by sheer luck the ship did arrive back on the scene and he was plucked from the water. A shower and a good sleep probably saw him back on watch within a day and the ship’s log would have had an appropriate entry to be more fully explained on arrival in her home port.

I assure you I am not making this up, I don’t recall the publish date being 1st April and I don’t think it was published as a fantasy story.

I hope that the above meanderings might jog some memory somewhere

Bob Jenkins


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

Isn't there a post somewhere from someone who sailed with this second mate on a subsequent voyage?
If not this then a very similair event.


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## melliget (Dec 3, 2006)

Amazing story, Bob. Unless there were two incidents with very similar details, I think this is the thread Marconi Sahib is referring to.
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=8906&highlight=British+Monarch

The ship was the British Monarch owned by Raeburn & Verel (Monarch Steamship Co.) and it was 22 year old Second Officer Douglas M. Wardrop from near Sevenoaks in Kent who fell overboard in the Pacific at 04:30 on Sunday 9 June 1957 and was picked up at 13:30. It was his first voyage with the company and the ship apparently. The master was Captain W. P. Coutts, of Scalloway, Shetland.

Here are two articles from The Times:
TheTimes_Wed_12Jun1957_Ships_Mate_In_Water_9hrs.png
TheTimes_Fri_14Jun1957_Mate_Never_Gave_Up_Hope.png

regards,
Martin


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

*Port line drama*

Dear Martin 
Thanks for that, all the factual details that you have suppied coincide with my memory of it. I could well of mistaken the ship's flag as Port Line but the times and place all seem to gel so perhaps I should edit my story title to read 'British Monarch' Drama
It was definitely a 0400 to o430 overboard time and even after reading the story almost 50 years ago the time in the water of around 9 hours remained with me.
Maybe the Second Mate had an interview with a journalist who would of expanded the story at a later date to include actions taken to stay afloat, mind games, suvival tactics etc or maybe the man wrote it himself but it was a chilling,thrilling story published by the 'Auckland Star' that has stuck with me all these years.
I have printed off your 'Times'clippings to verify my story to sceptical friends.
Thanks again for your research and lets hope that Douglas Wardrop is alive and well at 72 and may one day respond to this thread. 

Bob Jenkins


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## Pat McCardle (Jun 12, 2005)

Fantastic survival story, glad you got the feed back Bob.


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## John Crossland (May 11, 2007)

Bob,

If you read the SN thread posted by melliget, you will find that unfortunately, Douglas Wardrop died in 1987 at the age of 52.


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## melliget (Dec 3, 2006)

bob jenkins said:


> ..it was a chilling,thrilling story published by the 'Auckland Star' that has stuck with me all these years.
> Bob Jenkins


Hi Bob.

I see you are in Brisbane. The State Library of Queensland at Southbank has a reasonably good newspaper archive (at least it did when I lived there, though I was mainly interested in Victorian newspapers at the time). I just tried to check if they have the Auckland Star but I get an error on their page on newspapers. You could email or call them.

As John points out (I had missed it too), Douglas Wardrop unfortunately died at the relatively young age of 52. On the other hand, after his extraordinarily lucky escape at the age of 22, you could also say, in a way, that he was fortunate to have had 30 "extra" years 

Happy Christmas.
Martin


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