The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

1912 January, TAE MARINE REVIEW 29 ANNUAL MEETING PITTSBURGH STEAM- qe annual meeting of the officials and captains of the Pittsburgh Steamship Co. was held at the Hol- lenden, Cleveland,..om Jan. 1, 2:and 3. President H. Coulby;:presided. He re- viewed iri general the record of the year, saying that the fleet had carried a larger percentage of ore than ever before. Lis, Of €Gurse, does not mean that the Corporation moved more ore in 1911 than it did in 1910, but that a larger percentage of the movement was carried in its own ships. The subject of upkeep and repair to - the... boats was .diseussed by A. F. Harvey, assistant general manager. /H: A. Kelley,. counsel for the company, -addressed the masters on accidents -and the 'rules of the road. The annual dinner occurred Wednesday evening. President rell, poration, attended and delivered a brief address. A feature of the din- ner was the presentation of gold watches to Captains George Burt, W. J. Hunt, H. J. Regan and Fred Hoff- man, for rescuing life at sea. In this connection, Mr. Coulby said: "My first thought was that tonight I would take up a little time as this is our eighth annual convention, and briefly run. over what had 'been ac- complished in the eight years that we have been having these annual meet- ings, but when the boys made up a list for me it seemed to be so long, and in looking it over I realized that all of you know full well what we have accomplished, and I think that 'I have told everybody I know at least once; and probably a great many more: times, and in view of the fact that I have been doing a great deal of talking for the last three days, and whether you are tired of hearing me or not, I am pretty tired of talking, so I am going to skip that part of the program. : "T think, however, the thing we have accomplished on Par- greatest is the very fact of bringing us all together, here tonight, captains, engineers, shore force, management and the gen- erals of the army from New York. Proud of the Fleet "Now, gentlemen, I have said it a great many times, and I can say it again tonight, I am very proud of what we have accomplished. You all of the United States Steel Cor--- SAP CO. know the records I have been over with you during the past three days. Our people in New York know the record because we send it down to them, but there is one record we have made that I think I am more proud of than all the others, and that is what can be gathered from a few state- ments that I am going to read to you tonight. Probably in our early meet- ings you men smiled at me when I kept talking about discipline when I kept telling you we were a large or- ganization and that we were very likely, on the lakes, to get the repu- tation that because it was the Pitts- burgh Steamship Co., the dispatch we were getting and the way our ships were getting around, we were hogging 'it and our fellows were doing this, that and the other thing, and had no care or thought for the other fel- d3 | low. a Mr. Coulby then read a series of notable rescues and continued: "Now, gentlemen, I think we have established that other record I spoke of. The aluminum stacks had the reputation of being as well manned, if not the best manned boats on the lakes, did their business as cheaply, received as good dispatch and all those things, but we have added an- other record, and the aluminum stacks also stand as lifezsavers. We have demonstrated that we can do our bus- iness just as efficiently and just as economically as any other fleet, and in addition to that, we have got the time to stop and save human life. (Applause.) Recognition of Steamship ad. "Twas so proud of this that I could not avoid taking it down to New York and telling our people there about it, and they thought we ought to make some recognition of the excellent sea- manship, good lookout and discipline on board our ships that enabled our men to do these heroic acts, and it was decided by the board of direct- ors that in the four cases just men- tioned, on behalf of the company, as a recognition of their seamanship and humanity, that we should present each of them with a gold watch and chain. On behalf of the company, it gives me much pleasure to present Captains H. J. Regan, George G. Burt, W. J. Hunt and Fred Hoffman one these watches. "Now, before leaving this subject, I just want to read one more case that is entitled to honorable mention, and that is the case of the Malietoa. Gen- tlemen, this is what discipline does, this is what it means to have your men drilled, to have your boat drill . and have everything ready at all times. Of course this happened on Lake St. Clair where the water was smooth, but I do want to call atten- tion to it and to compliment Captain Rice on the: excellent discipline on his ship, that he was prepared at 10:30 at night to get his boat over- board and rescue a man from the lake." The rescues are described as fol-. lows: Some Notable Rescues About 5:45 p. m., May 1, 1911, when the steamer Bessemer, coal laden, was on a course from Point Betsie to Mil- waukee, about 5 miles by Port Wash- ington, we lowered a small boat' and picked up a crew of four men who were clinging to the capsized schooner Kate Howard. The wind was north- | northeast strong and a heavy sea run- ning. It had been snowing nearly all afternoon and had cleared a little, and the temperature was about 32. Capt. George Burt noticed consider- able lumber floating around, and the mate remarked to him that some boat had lost her deck load. Capt. Burt noticed an object about 5 or 6 miles off to the westward. He telephoned aft to the engineer and the cook, tell- ing them to get things in shape, as he. was going to turn around, knowing she would roll pretty heavily in the sea. She came around all right and -- they had not gone very far when they could see what it was. There was an old lumber schooner with three men and a boy hanging onto the side. Capt. Burt did not think it safe to go along- side on account of the heavy sea, but he decided to get a small boat over and rescue them if possible, as he felt satisfied that the mates and the wheel- men could handle the boat, and they did everything iat could be expected of them. Capt. Burt says he put the Besse- mer's head into the sea and she lay there sufficiently quiet to get the small boat over. They were to the windward of the schooner. He then turned the Bessemer and run to leeward and lay