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7. Ship of the Month - cont'd. got into the trough. The name could be made out, the BRUCE HUDSON, well known in lake traffic... Capt. Leonard resolved to board her. What his motives were, the court did not inquire, but it was not to his discredit if he had a h e a l t h y interest in the possi b i l i t i e s of ea rning salvage, as well as a h u m a n i t a r i a n desire to save a company's property and the lives of any of her crew who might have been left below decks, and to remove this fl oat ing menace from the path of navigation. "The seas ru nning made the approach of the two vessels difficult and dangerous. The one was 248 feet long, the other 164, their combined burden of three or four thousand tons made impact possibly fatal to both. There was, to Capt. Le onard's mind, the added hazard of explosion. He be lieved the tanker to be loaded with gasoline. As a matter of fact, she was filled w ith 6 , 700 bar rels of crude oil, but he had no reason to know that she w oul d not burst wi th a roar of flame on the first bump, through the sparks of steel cr ash ing on steel. "First he held the BRULIN up to w i n d w a r d of the w a l l o w i n g barge, thus m ak in g a lee, into which he lowered the sturdy punt the newsprint freighter c ar rie d on deck as a Workboat. The punt was held by a line from the steamer. First Mate Charlie Levens and Rod McLennan, wheelsman, the twin heroes of this sage, lashed themselves with lifelines to the punt and e ss aye d the voyage. "The punt was filled with water, but the two plucky chaps hung on,veering out line and letting the punt drift down on the barge until it was almost there. Then they could see that the seas were breaking over the HU D S O N with such force that the punt might be tossed right across the barge or c apsized or smashe d by touching it, and they themselves drowned. So they re l u c t a n t l y si gna lle d to be ha uled back aboard the B R U L I N . .. "Next they tried the landing boom. All big steamers ride so high above the wharf levels that to get a man ashore to run the 'wires' when a moor i n g is being made, with all the lower (cargo) ports closed, the line-tender has to be dr opp ed from the upper deck, as by parachute. To do this, a boom is rigge d with whip rove through a block at the end of it. The outer end of the whip has a crossbar on it. On this, the lineman sits or straddles, the boom is swung out over the side, and his shipmates, tailing on to the fall of the whip, lower him down, like a spider on the end of his thread, till he touches the wharf. It is a tricky descent at the best of times, sometimes forty feet through the air, even if the ship is still and the w har f solid and free from ice. "For one thing, you are apt to hang on to the rope a second too long, and find yo ur se lf sitting down very hard as they keep play i n g out the slack. But if you are dangling at the end of a thread from a 2 , 000 ton ship ro lli ng her insides out in the trough, and are trying to light on another he av in g p l a tf or m rol ling just as hard, and washed nec k - d e e p by breakers well, you are apt to get more than wet in the process. "This was just Charlie Levens' problem. Capt. Leonard worked the BRULIN past the barge, on the lee side of her this time so as not to crush her by rollin g down on her. The BRULIN passed wit h i n twenty-five feet, w hic h was a very na rr ow ma r g i n for rolling safety, and the landing boom swung out, with First Mate Levens on the end of it. The boom end missed the barge rail by three feet. Wh en the BRULIN rolled to starboard, he was plunged into the icy waters of Lake Ontario almost head-under. When the BRULIN rolled to port, he was swung fifty feet high in the air in a d i z zying arc. "The BRULIN ro lled past, came around, and tried again. This time, Mate Levens was almost crushed as his 'boatswain's chair', the crossbar, struck the ho is ti ng gear on the barge's forward deck. He could not drop off and catch the barge, so the second try failed.