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Captain Nicholson, of the Valentine Helicar, has given our reporter the following particulars of the disaster which occurred on Wednesday, at 4 p.m. off Yankalilla:- She left the anchorage at the lightship for Melbourne at 11 a.m. on that day. At three a .m. the gale commenced from the W.N.W. and the vessel was reduced to close-reefed canvas, the for-sail and jib being furled. At four p.m. the wind suddenly shifted to west, and the crew attempted to clew up the topsail, but whilst they were so engaged the vessel was thrown on her beam-ends. The main-sheet was then let go, but the water being too high, and the vessel almost keel upwards, the main-boom would not pay off. The crew got on the weather bulwarks, and, though subsequently thrown off, succeeded in swimming back to the hull. Whilst in this perilous situation they attempted to extricate a boat ; but when, after severe exertion, they were nearly successful, it was cut in two by fragments of the rigging. which lashed against them in such a manner that their fate seemed inevitable. The captain and crew, eight in all, succeeded in holding on by the chain cables, though the hull was occasionally submerged in the trough of the sea. It would appear that some man must have stowed himself away in the hold before the vessel sailed, as Captain Nicholson saw during yesterday morning a corpse entangled in the fore-rigging. When the vessel, after drifting about from Wednesday evening, got abreast of Brighton, before sundown the unhappy men who clung to her managed to break away a portion of the bulwarks and made a signal of distress. They were not perceived at Brighton, but attracted the attention of persons at the Bay. Two boats then put off and rescued the survivors. Captain Nicholson, whose conduct appears to have been most cool and collected, has supplied a long narrative of the disaster, but it reached us too late for the present publication. The hull of the vessel is still drifting about in the Bay.- ^ back to top ^ |