Sprung A Leak.

Captain C. M. Renaut tells a good story of an incident in his father's career in the old Crusader. It happened on the voyage out to New Zealand. After leaving the Azores the ship began to leak, and she was making as much as two and a half inches an hour, so the skipper was sorely tempted to put into one of the ports on the South American coast towards which ships used to keep in order to pick up the trade winds, but the ship's doctor (the late Dr. Guthrie, of Christchurch) advised against this, as yellow fever was rife in the South American ports at that time, and he did not like taking the risk of getting the scourge among the immigrants, of whom there was a large number on board. Captain Renaut therefore held on, and by the time the ship was nearing the Cape of Good Hope the leak took up, and no water was coming in, so it was decided there was no need to put into port.