bile LOOKOUT • September, 1951 No. 9 "MAKING PORT" From the painting by GORDON GRANT The Lookout Vol. XLII September, 1951 No.9 ~a:ndua:ry Errand of Mercy God bless all men in little boats. In punts and wherries and ketches; By Chaplain Charles F. Nugent in scows and dhows and dugouts; in junks, sampans and catamarans; EDITOR'S NOH: Planes and helicopters are gelling the valve loose, when lhe steam used on errand of mercy to overcome the in cutters and skiffs and sloops; in prams and shells and dinghies; in hazards of time and di tance. The Insti­ that had collected blew the valve right dories, canoes and whaleboats; and even, God, in motorboats. Amen. tute's Chaplain-in.re. idence at the U. S. out at me, along with all the steam. Public Health lto pital, Stapleton, taten Phew! I didn't know what happened! - Gordon C. Aymar, "A Treasury of Sea Stories," I land, reports a recent incident where fa t It knocked me right over into the A. S. Barnes & Co. tran portation played an important part in bulkhead." Dave doesn't know how ~aving a seaman's life. he did it, but he managed to get up AVE is a young engineer, in hi to the teward, who ran for help for Dlate twenties, and married to a him. After the fir t hock, the pain 01 very prelly und u very nice girl. He the burns was beginning to get more sailed les than a month ago, and one intense-and there is nothing worse day in checking over things, he found than being burned with steam- and a leak in the steam pipe. His shift was even the hypo which they gave him almo t over, so he asked his a sistant didn't "eem to have too much effect. to fix i l. The leak v.orried him_ and "It eemed age before anything when he looked into the log when he was done, and the worst of it was I VOL. XLII. EPTEMBER.1951 came on duty, he found that it hadn't couldn't sit or lie down. They bad Copyright. 1951, by the Seamen's been done, so he decided right then radioed the Coa t Guard base for in­ Church In stitute of New Y ork and there to fix it. struction 1 and they in turn called the PURL! llED r.10 THL'I "I've alway been the one to yell Marine Ho pital in Stapleton. Before br the about 'saIety-fir t' with my gang," 1 knew it, a PBY had landed along- SEAMEN'S CHURCH said Dave, 'but I ure .lipped up this ide our ship. I was lowered into a INSTITUTE OF NEW YORK Lime! f'd had the team turned off, lifeboat, and rowed over to the plane. CLAREI CE G. MICHALI, but J hadn' t realized what a big leak And that was 135 mile off the coast President il was. 1 un crewed the cap and was of ew Jersey! The Doc in the plane THOMA ROBERT SCCf(· tary 3. nd Tre~15u r f:'r REV. RAYMO TD . HAI.L. D.D . Dlrectur MARJORIE DENT CA. DEE. Editor 1.00 per year lOc per copy over include a year's subscrip­ "25 SOltth Street," large.l Gifts of 5.00 per year and ,110ft' home in tile world tion to "THE LOOKOUT." fOf u 'Iive IIwrchant sea­ ElIt,nuJ dJ Jf((wd clelrl flltllILf, } II/) H. men of all nationalitir •. 192'$, at 'cu' }'ork, N. )... , Imdt'r fht ,1(/ 01 AI",r/) 3. 1879 . AddreJJ all communication! 10 SEAI\IEN'S CH R H I STlT TE OF EW YORK 25 SO TH ST., EW YORK 4, , " T elerhune BOwling Grten 9·27 10 Photo b, U. ~ . CO" II " lia rd elves but to the h o pi tal : taii i n th e~e day' of nur ing shorLage. a ~ f)l1.4ic&. f)L Dave has bad one kin-graft opera_ By Marvin O. Rice tion, and he'll have to have another Pilot Charts Editor and Assistont Head of the Pilot Chart one. for the third de~ree burns on hit' Bronch of the U, S , Novy Hydrogrophic Office, Washington, O. C. thi gh. He pulled up hi s hirt Lo ho'l Editor's Note; they would be pi cked up and so hring me where they had taken the pieces or help. Our .. Message-in-a-Bottle" Bene­ skill from his abdomen. Hi ~ ] e!!~ are Distress Messages At in the Spring of 1950 stimulated getting belter, but, as he explained. .\fodem communications facilities havp public interest in the mysterious ways repl aced drift bottle as a mean of trans· " They were on ly second degrf'e of drifting boltles. Of 249 bottles mitting di stress messages. Even so, a p;enu­ burns." Then he added-like all th e launched by the S.c.1. on the seven ine distr s mes age was found in a botll f' as recently a, a ('ouple of years ngo, It had men who have Leen on thei I' baeb in seas, 36 to date have been found, "There is a tremendous spirit of camaraderie I)(~ en released 45 years previous by the Polar among the men in the hospital." bed for more Lhan Lwo day, "The and returned by the Anders to 25 ex plorer, Evelyn Baldwin, wh o had written Lhing 1 wanL to do most is just to get South Street, as requested. This is a hasty note calling for aid. He had sealed gave me another hypo, and it mu t regarded by experts as a remarkably it in a small watertight container and had up out of this bed, and sit do\~ll in a ca t it into the Arctic Ocean. The message have been a strong one, for I ~ure chair ao-ain:' high number to be found. M. D. C. drifted or remained undiscovered for nearly f.la ~ 'ed oul.·" And he will, and he will Clo more half a century before a Soviet lisherman Dave didn't know it aL the Lime, AVE . yo u ever strolled along the discovered it in the sea ice in the Ru, ian than thaL, because he ha the deter­ Arctic. The note, written in Norwegian and LuL the planelnnded at Floyd BenneLt H beach and watched an object minaLion, and the courage, and th e English, read: "Fi\'e ponic and 150 dog, field, where the Con t Guard had one washing ashore on the incoming tide? remaining. De ire hay, Ii hand 30 sledges. faith to do it, and those are the same of its helicopter - all warmed up. It Jf it wasn't "The Thing" in the recent \fust return early in August, baffled." qualiti es Lhat help to make a man a song hit, it IVa probably a boLtle con· didn't Lake Loo long for the trip over Forty·1i e years too late, the me age had aood . eaman. taining n me sage. A. you are an aver· of rourse 10 1 it~ urgency, Howf'ver, the to the Marine Hospital. The "copter" age morLal, curious and adventurous, expedition came through safely and Bald­ landed ri ght on the lawn behind the win him. elf died a natural death at hi s CHAPLAINS VISIT SEAMEN you opened (or broke) the bottle and home in 1933. This is just one example of ho pital, and attendants were already IN HOSPITALS removed the "Bottle Paper." Such a how messages sent in this \l'ay may be waiting Lo rush him up for immediaLe _trange and exciting thing to happen picked up and read year afterward. In addition to carryi ng on ,en'ices in Queen Elizabeth, in 1560, following a treatmenl. Dave has been in the ho - the Seamen's hurch Institute Chapel, to you! You found instruction to the nnd visiting , eamen in the U .. lI'Iarin(' find er printed in eighL languages, in­ boatman' discovery of a vital political pital ror over two weeks now, and ,ccret contained in a bottle message picked Ho. pital * at S tapl ~ ton . S. I" and li t cluding the international, synthetic when [ aw him today he had qui te ?llanhattan Brach, Brooklyn, the In sti· up on the beach at Dover, appointed an E peranLo. Closer examination re­ oli ial ncorker of Bottle. Briti h law, tute haplains ar!' a l ~o ca ll (' J upon to a beard. But a he i bed-ridden, he whi ch has ince been repealed, then made minister to seamen in many otIH''r ho ~­ vealed that the bottle containing the can't have him eli, and so ha to it a penal oliense for anyone but an author· pitals. Social 1'orker notify th e Institute paper had been cast overboard by the wait for one of hi friends to do it when seamen are admitted. master or officer of an oceangoing iZf' d per on to read hottle me sages. for him, or maybe get the barber to Bottle mes age have solved the mystery During the past ypar til(' ChaplainR vessel many months ago and hundred, of long·missing ship. In 1902, two naval come up. There is a tremendous ~ piriL have rall f" u upon ('amen at the Beek­ (occasionally thousand) of miles \'essel earched the Atlantic for three of camQraderie among the seamen in man, t. Claire, Roo evelt. l. Luke'~ a\ ay. month for some trace of the mis in p; steamer a nd It.