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Ship of the Mo nth - cont'd. 8. "So they de ci d e d to try a lifeboat landing. The BRULIN's lifeboat, a much heavie r craft than the little punt that had failed, was cleared away, and the ship st eam ed to w i n d w a r d of the barge so as to make a lee again. The boat was ma n n e d and the crew stood by to lower. Then the BRU LIN took a tremendous roll and one of the davits jammed and the ho isting gear at the stern of the lifeboat fouled. She could not be got down safely, or on an even keel, so she was hois t e d back on board. "But Capt. Le on a r d was not to be beaten. If men and boats could not do it, the 'mudhook' might. Six times he p a t i e n t l y nosed the BRULIN up a stern of the w a l l o w i n g HUDSON, both vessels rolling like things demented. His hope was to drop an anchor, like a great fish hook, so that it would grip the w r i g g l i n g whale. Sounds simple. But he was playing with a fish hook w e i g h i n g a ton or two, and a line w e i g h i n g a couple of tons more - chain cable, each link many pounds - and his catch was a heav i n g mass of steel to touch wh ich mi ght mean the sinking of two ships. Steel plates are strong, but they cut like tin when thousands of tons are behind the stroke. "Six times the BRULIN appr o a c h e d the barge. Five times the engines were re ver sed and five times she backed away, mi ssing the barge's stern by fathoms, feet or inches. "The BR ULI N be gan her work at 11 o' clock that November morning. At five that No vem ber evening, she was still at it. through the early dusk, the smoke plume of another steamer blurred the horizon. On she came, leaping and ro lli ng in the heavy seas. She began to circle the BRULIN and the barge. She was the S I M COLITE (an Imperial Oil tanker, later [b] IMPERIAL SIMCOE -ed.). Her captain hailed from her bridge, at a distance of 400 feet. The wind w h i r l e d his words up the lake. "'We don't need any h e l p ! ' roared Capt. Leonard. 'We're getting h e r . ' "The SIM CO LI TE sheered off and steamed away on her course. As she departed, the BRULIN 's bow grazed the barge's stern, on the sixth try. It was only a 'light touch', but the sparks flew and the forepeak plates and port side of the BR ULI N were dinted in - $2,500 w orth (a lot of m o n e y in 1935 dollars-ed.) and the stern plates of the barge were b a t tered just as badly. "But... The port anchor, dropped at the right second, gripped the stout steel bulwarks of the stern of the barge. And held! Then it began to snow. "From five o' clo ck that evening till 11 o'clock that night, the BRULIN hung on in the snow, gra dually incr e asing her prec arious but tenacious grip. Six shots of anchor chain, 15 fathoms each, in all 540 feet of steel links, were ve ere d out, the sag of the chain forming a sort of spring which kept the two vessel s connected with a m i n i m u m of strain. Gently, the BRULIN eased away and got s t r a ightened out on a course up the lake, trailing the BRUCE HU D S O N after her, sometimes stern-first, sometimes sideways, through the snow. "At two o' clo ck next morning, the wind veered from nort heast to east and it cleared. It blew as hard as ever and the sea ran high. By 11 o'clock in the foren oon (of the 17th), 24 hours after the BRULIN had sighted the barge in midlake, abreast of Cobourg, the pair had won to wi t h i n four miles of Port Weller, the We lland Canal, and safety. "But how to get in? It is one thing to tow a couple of thousand tons wrongend-to wi th all the lake to roll around in, and another thing indeed to get such a prize, going both ways at once, into port. And it started to snow again! "Again the landing boom was rigged. Again First Mate Levens, still on deck after 24 hours' ceaseless activity, swung like a spider twenty feet ov erb oar d from the BRULIN's side. A swell rose between the two ve ssels and subsided. Next moment, he was fair over the H U D SON'S icy deck, plumb