“With the courses and lower topsails alone set, she soon lost way sufficiently to allow the boat being lowered, which by that time had been manned. Only four minutes elapsed between the girl going over the side and the boat being in the water, but in this short space of time the ship had travelled a good half mile and quite far enough to make the search a most difficult one, especially seeing that the night was intensely dark and a heavy sea running. The search was kept up for some four hours and only abandoned then through the danger of keeping the boat in the water, for she was several times nearly swamped. Needless to say, on such a night, and the probabilities being that the girl was drowned at once, no sign was seen of her. Two of the life-buoys were afterwards picked up by another ship. The reason of the suicide, for such it undoubtedly was, remained a mystery. The girl had no relations with her and no one on board could throw any light on the matter.”
On another occasion the ship was going some 5 knots in the tropics when an apprentice fell overboard during the forenoon watch. It was quite 20 minutes before the boat reached him, but he was found swimming along quite composed, having unlaced and taken his heavy boots off and slung them round his neck, as their weight was less felt there and he did not want to lose them.
Another of Sobraon’s apprentices was even still more cool-headed. This one fell off the footrope of the mainyard, being one of 30 hands aloft stowing the mainsail. Luckily he was well in to the quarter of the yard and so fell on the deck. If he had gone overboard there would have been little chance of picking him up. The fall was one of 58 feet and he fell within 3 feet of the second mate. The latter naturally expected to find him dead, but he recovered consciousness within an hour, and was about again a month later quite recovered. He declared that as soon as he felt himself falling he made himself as rigid as possible, brought his head and legs together and protected the former with his arms; and he landed in that position on his side. He was a big fellow, being over 6 feet in height and weighing 14 stones.
Another marvellous escape from aloft was that of a man who was helping to stow the main upper topsail. This man suddenly lost his hold and came down spread-eagle fashion. He dropped on to the main rigging and carried away 7 ratlins of 27 thread stuff, then landed on the rail without breaking a bone. This was in 1886, and the Sobraon was just making Plymouth. The man was taken to hospital and recovered in a few days. As soon as he came out of hospital, he claimed damages from the ship, declaring that a grummet on the jackstay had given away; but it was easily proved that nothing went and the man had simply lost his hold.
But all falls from aloft on the Sobraon were not so fortunate as these two. A young ordinary seaman once fell from the mizen topgallant rigging with fatal consequences. The crossjack had just been hauled up and the mizen topgallant sail clewed up, and the hands were sent aloft to make the sails fast. This man, with three others, being first aloft, went up to stow the topgallant sail. Suddenly the men on the cross jack footropes heard an agonising cry and a form whizzed past them, struck the spanker gaff and then fell on the deckhouse. The poor fellow broke his spine amongst other injuries and died almost immediately.
On still another occasion, when the Sobraon was again coming into Plymouth, a man working in the main futtock rigging lost his hold and fell on deck right in the midst of a crowd of passengers. There were close on 100 people standing about at the time and it was extraordinary that he fell on no one—he just touched a lady on the shoulder and bruised her a little—but was of course horribly smashed up himself and killed instantly. The shock to the crowd of passengers standing round may easily be imagined.
There were two curious cases of somnambulism amongst the passengers of the Sobraon. The first was a Church of England clergyman and he was most methodical in his movements. He invariably appeared on deck about midnight and would first of all go up on the poop and peer into the compass; and then, after strolling the deck for a few minutes, would go below to the small saloon aft where prayers were held by him on that voyage. Here he would go over the service to an imaginary congregation, after which he would return to his berth and turn in. In the early days of the voyage he was spoken to about his sleep walking, and, at his own request, was locked into his cabin one night. The result was that when he found that he could not get out for his sleep walk, he worked himself into a fury of rage and began smashing things in his cabin. At last the door had to be opened for fear that he would do himself some damage and after a great deal of coaxing he was got back to bed. For some days after this, however, he was in a pretty bad way and no further attempt was made to stop him walking in his sleep.
The second case was of a young man who generally appeared on deck for about an hour each night. On one occasion the officer of the watch, thinking that he was too close to the side of the ship and fearing that he might get on the rail or fall overboard, touched him with a view to getting him away. The somnambulist at once grappled with the mate and was only mastered after over a quarter of an hour’s desperate struggle. As on an ordinary occasion the mate in question could probably have accounted for three men of the somnambulist’s build and physique, the incident goes to prove that sleep walkers, if interfered with, are possessed temporarily of a madman’s strength.
On her last trip the Sobraon arrived at Melbourne about mid-December, 1891, and after discharging took in sufficient ballast to take her round to Sydney. Here she was sold to the New South Wales Government, who turned her into a reformatory ship, and for the next twenty years she lay moored in Sydney harbour. In 1911 she was handed over to the Federal Government to be converted into a training ship for boys entering the Australian Navy. On being put into dry dock for survey, it was found that, in spite of her age, she was as sound as a bell.