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I write because the pen moves. -- Lora Clarke

SAYVILLE L. I. April 6 – On the outer bar, about a mile and a half east of the Lone Hill Life Saving Station on Fire Island, the North German Lloyd steamship Prinzess Irene, incoming from Naples, in command of Capt. F. von Letten Peterssen, lies tonight caught fast in the sand, more tightly imbedded than at 6 o’clock this morning, when the steamer poked her nose into the shoals, which the Sayville fold speak of as “The Graveyard” because of the many vessels which have grounded there to pound themselves to pieces. Aboard the crippled liner, lying broadside to the sea, her 2,100 passengers and crew are waiting still almost within sight of the lights of New York, in the hope that the next high tide may enable the tugs and revenue cutters that are standing by to haul her off.

Dry land is less than 300 yards from the beleaguered fold aboard the vessel, and on the sandy strip which forms the outer edge of Fire Island they can see tonight the huge bonfire around which are waiting the crews of the Blue Point and Point o’ Woods Life Saving Stations. Six miles off, across Great South Bay, the lights of Sayville have twinkled encouragement to the steamer’s company until one by one the sleepy fold ashore retired for the night. But the beacon around which the life savers are grouped will shine until it dims before the morning light, a pledge to those on the stranded vessel that men and boats are waiting only for the need to put off to their assistance.

Late tonight there is a freshening wind from the southwest with the sting of Winter cold in it, and before it the ground swell which rose and fell all day about the steamer has been beaten into tall breakers which are sweeping down on the vessel and breaking with regular monotony over her superstructure.

Ready with the Breeches Buoy. Yet the steamer and those aboard her are safe, say the life savers, as though she were fast to her Hoboken pier. Aboard her, besides her passengers and crew, are Capt. George E. Goddard and all his men but one of the Lone Hill Life Saving Station. Their non-sinkable boat is hauled up to the davits, ready for an emergency, and Capt. Goddard and his men are prepared at the first need to furnish expert assistance in rigging a whip from shore to vessel for the breeches buoy. Ashore the other life savers are waiting with gun already  pointed for Capt. Goddard’s signal which shall send the leading line of the breeches buoy hurtling over the ship.

But those around the fires on the shore do not look for the signal. They are prepared only against possible emergency for the Prinzess Irene, though hard and fast on the shoal, is resting apparently safely, with only a slight list to port. Her nose is pointed into the northwest, much as it would be pointed were the steamer making now for her Hoboken pier. Sand is heaped high about her forefoot and stern. Her keel is buried in it, and so heavily must she have plunged into the bar that from the Fire Island shore tonight her starboard propeller showed only half submerged, before darkness hid everything about the liner except her myriad of lights. It is probably the list of the vessel which has raised the starboard propeller half out of the water, and it is probably because of this that the vessels’ efforts to back off the bar were unsuccessful. Even with the aid of the Merritt Chapman wrecking tug Relief, which got a line aboard shortly before 4 o’clock this afternoon, not an inch did the liner gain though she trembled with the strain of the tug and her own engines.

Small Fleet About Liner. About the steamer now are waiting, besides the Relief, the Revenue Cutter Mohawk, the derelict destroyer Seneca, the Merritt-Chapman wrecking tug L.J. according to messages received here and at the Fire Island telegraph station.

With such a fleet about the steamer and with life savers on board and ashore, seamen here believe that the steamer is in no danger, though they concede that the removal of the passengers, should it be found impossible to float the Prinzess Irene at daylight, may provide a difficult task for the rescuers. Local weather sharps predict a much higher wind tomorrow than is blowing late tonight, and with it they look for even a heavier sea than that which ran today and made the removal of passengers practically impossible.

Word has been received here that the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm of the North German Lloyd Line will leave Hoboken tomorrow morning to take the passengers off the Prinzess Irene. If this is attempted in a high sea, the lifesavers say, there will be hard and dangerous work for all concerned. Small boats could not live in a sea such as has run today, and the transfer will have to be made by the Seneca and Mohawk, a task that will test the seamanship of their crews to the utmost.

That the predicted bad weather will come to pass is indicated by the wind which is blowing tonight. Since darkness fell the wind has increased approximately to 20 miles an hour, and the incoming tide, urged on by this blow, is rocking the Irene so that the movement is visible from shore. The swells that follow one another shoreward roll up her black sides and spatter over her white superstructure. Over them the moon, which finally has dispelled the fog, casts a dim light.

Siren Shriek Out of the Fog. It was in a heavy fog—Sayville folk say it was “thick as puddin’”—that the Prinzess, ten miles off her course, ran aground. It was 6 o’clock in the morning and the mist obscured the daylight. Sayville was still asleep.

Suddenly from out of the murk came the moaning shriek of a siren, and Sayville folk who knew the water hurried from their beds, grabbed hasty bites of breakfast, and sped to the shore to take passage across Great South Bay in their auxiliary fishing boats. They knew that a liner was ashore.

On the beach, patrolling his section from the Lone Hill station to where his post meets that of the Point o’ Woods man, Life Saver Ed Baker heard the siren’s call. He telephoned the news to his father, Capt. Charles W. Baker, at Point o’ Woods life saving station, and then ran to his own quarters in the Lone Hill station.

Over the beach came the steady moan of the siren, an accompaniment to the hurried preparations of the lifesavers. From the Lone Hill house the big lifeboat was run to the beach. From Blue Point and Point o’ Woods Capt. Baker and Capt. Frank Rourke, with their crews, came pounding steadily along the beach at a dog trot.

Lifeboat Off to the Liner. The lifeboat, ready before the other crews reached the place, was run into the surf. Into it tumbled Capt. Goddard, with Ed Baker, Frank Robinson, Bill Flynn, Bill Leach, Jem Oakley, Jr., and Jim Reynolds. Bill St. Claire stayed behind to handle signals and receive word from his comrades when they should reach the stranded vessel.

The fog lay as heavy as when the siren first sounded, but, guided by its sound, Capt. Goddard steered straight for the Prinzess Irene. Onto the beach pounded waves that would have swamped any but a lifeboat manned by veterans. The Lone Hill men plunged through them as though they had been simple rollers. Seas covered them, but their oilskins threw off the water.

It was 3:30 o’clock before they found themselves beside the ship. It was many minutes later before they got aboard. The rails of the steamer were lined with passengers and crew, watching the lifeboat, a cockleshell in the heavy sea, tossed here and there as its skipper watched for a chance to make the ship. At last it came, and while the passengers cheered the crew of the lifeboat got their craft fast to the davit drops, and presently the boat was hauled aboard with its crew of oil-skinned seamen.

Still fog made communication with the shore impossible. Capt. Goddard and Capt. Peterssen consulted together. There was no immediate danger, they agreed; no need to risk taking passengers off in such weather. To wait was all they could do, though Capt. Goddard fidgeted uneasily until the fog lifted enough for a wigwag signal to be sent ashore.

Lifting Fog Shows Help at Hand. When the fog did rise, the beach lay spread before those on the vessel, a long yellow strand, peopled by scores of black figures. They were the life savers from Blue Point and Point o’ Woods and the Sayville folk who had hurried across the bay. Ed Baker mounted the Prinzess Irene’s bridge, and at Capt. Goddard's discretion sent word to his father, in charge ashore in Capt. Goddard’s absence, to prepare the breeches buoy and be ready to shoot a line out at an instant’s notice. From the shore came back the signal that the order was understood and would be obeyed. Then Capt. Goddard rested comfortably, he and his crew circulating among the 235 cabin passengers and the 1,485 of the steerage, encouraging the timid ones by their very presence, and adding words of assurance whenever they were needed.

But at best it was a nerve-racking wait for those aboard. It was no later than 9 o’clock when the life savers boarded the Prinzess Irene. It was not until 2 o’clock that the first of the rescuing craft put in an appearance. Meanwhile wireless messages had been sent to New York for help.

Seneca First to Appear. It was the derelict destroyer Seneca which reached the scene first. She steamed as near the Prinzess Irene as the heavy sea would permit, and then those ashore saw her lower a boat over the side. Evidently the destroyer meant to get a line aboard the stranded craft, if that were possible. But the small boat was tossed to the top of huge rollers only to sink back in the trough of them, and presently she put back to the Seneca, her task abandoned as impossible.

And then there was more waiting. It was an hour later before the Mohawk appeared. She stood by at a safe distance, but made no attempt to  get a line aboard, warned perhaps by the efforts of her sister ship reported to her by signals. It was nearly 4 o’clock when the I. J. Merritt came up, and a few minutes later the relief hove in sight. The last to arrive was the Timmons, after what must have been a record run from New York.

Couldn’t Move The Vessel. The Relief instantly set about getting a line aboard the Prinzess Irene. The sea and wind both subsided slightly as evening came on, and the Relief men finally managed to get aboard the liner. The latter’s crew had been busy meantime and had got a stern anchor overboard. With the line to the Relief and the stern anchor as a warping line, an effort was made to move the steamship. The Relief strained at the line with the full power of her engines. The Prinzess Irene’s propellers spun at full speed. Around a winch an effort was made to take in slack on the anchor line. But all the efforts failed, and after an hour’s hard work the task was abandoned.

It was then that Capt Goddard signaled ashore that he and his men would stay aboard all night, and it was then that the life savers on the beach set about building their beacon fires, as much to keep warm as to provide a signal of encouragement for those on the ship for the wind was increasing in coldness.

Others Left in “The Graveyard.” While they watched for a possible signal from the ship the men about the wait by tales of other shipwrecks. Only last night they were called to the rescue beacon fire broke the monotony of the oyster schooner, Two Brothers, which ran aground on the treacherous shoals, and got her crew off safely. They recalled, too, the times when the steamer Harburg grounded off the island in 1908, the fishing schooner Swallow pounded to pieces in the Winter of 1909, and the Spanish mail steamship Antonio Lopez, grounded on the shoals in the same year.

It was from a wreck that Capt. Goddard came to the island, said his mates. He was a member of the bark Roxana, which foundered off the Fire Island beach in 1871. Capt. Goddard was one of the crew to be washed ashore, unconscious and almost dead. It was months before he regained his health, and when he did it was to devote the rest of his life to saving from the fate that was almost his others whom chance might send ashore on the shifting sands.

Late tonight those about the fire are still on watch for a signal from the liner. Ashore the town is asleep, but on the Prinzess Irene the myriad of lights show.

3,100 SOULS ON THE LINER. 235 of These Cabin Passengers—How The Line Heard of the Grounding. The first news of the grounding of the incoming Prinzess Irene came to the Hoboken pier of the North German Lloyd line about 7:45 A.M. It was a brief message from Capt. F von Letten Peterssen stating that the liner was ashore. Then followed successive messages, a call for wrecking boats, and the assurance that the passengers were well and in no danger.

The first action taken by the line was for the safety of the passengers. It was at first proposed to remove them from the vessel late yesterday afternoon. Then it was considered inadvisable to attempt to transfer them to another vessel under the weather conditions then prevailing. Late in the day the North German Lloyd officials announced that if the vessel was not free of the sands early this morning their transatlantic steamship Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, now in port, would go down to take off the passengers, steerage as well as cabin, and bring them to the city. The Prinz Friedrich will leave her pier at 7 A.M. On her will go representatives of the Health Officer of the Port and the customs and immigration men. The health officials will examine the steerage passengers on the way up from Fire Island to Quarantine, and the other officials will expedite the landing of the passengers and the examination of their baggage, which will be taken off at the same time.

First News of the Accident. The Prinzess Irene was last reported by wireless before her grounding early on Wednesday morning. She was then 370 miles east of Sandy Hook, and under favorable circumstances should have reached her pier and landed her passengers yesterday morning. She sailed from Genoa on March 23, calling later on Naples and Palermo. She left Gibraltar, her last port of call, on March 27. She has on board 235 cabin (first and second class), 1,485 steerage, and a crew of 380 officers and men.

“Irene aground off Lone Hill Life Saving Station, Sayville, S. I. Vessel uninjured and passengers asleep.”

This was the first word of the accident received by the officials of the company in this city. It had been preceded by a very few minutes by a message from the Captain of Lone Hill Life Saving Station, which read:

“A large two-pipe transatlantic steamship ashore opposite the life saving station. Looks like a German liner.”

As soon as the message from Capt. Peterssen was received things began to move on the company’s pier in Hoboken and in the Broadway office of the company. The Merritt-Chapman Wrecking Company was notified of the stranding of the steamship and ordered to send wrecking vessels at once to her aid. The United States Revenue Cutter Service was also notified, and within a very few minutes after receiving word the cutter Mohawk and the derelict destroyer Seneca, on station off Staten Island, were steaming out through the Narrows.

The Merrit-Chapman Company sent the Relief from Tompkinsville, the I. J. Merritt from New London, Conn., and the tug Timmons, with the barge F. R. Sharp. Orders were sent to the wrecking boat Rescue at Norfolk. She got away at noon yesterday and will arrive off Fire Island this morning. Capt. Kunwich, Pier Superintendent of the line, started for Fire Island in the tug John Nichols. He will remain there until the Prinzess Irene is floated, and will see to the safe transfer of her passengers on the arrival of the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, or before, if the emergency should require.

While all this was being done, shortly before 9 o’clock came a message from Capt. Peterssen asking that wrecking tugs be sent to his assistance, so that an attempt could be made to haul him off the sand at high water. He was notified that the tugs were coming to his aid. Half an hour later came another inquiry as to tugs. Later came a message from the Irene, telling of the lifting of the fog. By wireless the Captain said he expected to get off the sand about noon. The next message made public by the line came about 10 A.M.

“Irene resting easily. Weather and sea favorable. Expect tugs hourly. Passengers all well.”

This message was corroborated by the Captain of the Lone Hill Life Saving Station. He told an official of the line over the telephone that the Prinzess Irene was about 250 yards off shore, and the weather conditions were good.

“Still waiting for tugs,” was another message.

Then came news from outside points telling of the approach of tugs to the stranded liner.

“Tugs Relief, Merritt, and Timmons, cutters Seneca and Mohawk alongside now, tug Rescue expected noon today,” was the message from apt. Peterssen received at 3:30 P. M.

The officials of the line late in the afternoon learned of the unsuccessful attempt to float the Prinzess Irene. With considerable difficulty a wrecking crew in a longboat succeeded in getting to the side of the stranded liner and running out a hawser to the Relief. A steady attempt was made to dislodge the steamship, the Irene assisting with her engines reversed and a stern anchor out. All efforts failed to move her an inch . . .

At 7 P.M. this message was received at the office of the line: “Ship resting easy, clear, little wind, a good swell on. Passengers comfortable; no danger.”

A number of persons called at the office of the line in the course of the day to inquire about the stranding of the vessel. They were told that she would probably soon be floated and there was no cause for worry about those on board. The line officials declare, so far as they have heard, that there was no excitement on board when the liner struck the bar, and, of course, there is now no question as to the saving of the passengers. It is the safety of the vessel which is now the line’s chief concern.

Between the decks on the Prinzess Irene are 2,780 tons of cargo. It is made up mostly of macaroni, silk, lemons, cheese, talc, wines, olive oil, and straw goods. When the passengers are taken off today, if the vessel refuses to budge under the pulling of the wrecking vessels and the strain of the kedge anchors, she will have to be lightered by removing the cargo to barges.

The officials of the line would not venture an opinion yesterday as to the causes that led to the stranding of the vessel. They did not know whether soundings were being made as the vessel ran through the fog, although there is no doubt that Capt. Peterssen lost his way. It was foggy all Wednesday, and the impression here is that the skipper could make no observations on that day. Indeed, it is probably  that he had had no observation since Tuesday, and was steaming by dead reckoning.

Possibly the currents along the Long Island shore, which navigators say are treacherous under certain tidal conditions, may have contributed in edging the vessel near the sands. The Captain perhaps supposed that he was farther off shore and nearer New Jersey, steaming on a course which would have brought him within hailing distance of the Ambrose Channel Lightship, when in reality he was headed in the fog for the Fire Island beach.

Among the passengers on the Prinzess Irene are Mr. and Mrs. L. M. Ogden, Mrs. Joel B Erhart of New York, and Dr. Frederick Wilson of Bridgeport.

HAS FIGURED IN RESCUES. The Prinzess Irene Saved Passengers and Crew of the Wrecked Slavonia. The Prinzess Irene, under the command of Capt. Frederic von Letten Peterssen, rescued the passengers and crew of the Cunard liner Salvonia when the latter went ashore on the rocky coast of the Azores in June, 1909. The Prinzess Irene picked up the Slavonia’s wireless calls for help, and in three hours she was alongside the stranded vessel taking off the 300 passengers. The rescue was made under difficulties, and was one of the most remarkable feats at sea in many years.

This is not the only rescue that the Prinzess Irene has figured in. In 1904 she ran across a sinking Austrian brigantine, and rescued her crew of eight men.

Since the Prinzess Irene made her maiden voyage to this port in 1900 she has had several thrilling experiences. Early in January, 1907, she left Naples bound for New York, in a strong windstorm. The boat was damaged, and was obliged to put back to port. She then collided with the liner Moltke, and both were injured seriously enough to compel a layoff for three weeks for repairs.

A particularly thrilling voyage was made in January of last year. While on her way to Bremen the liner ran into bad weather and lost her rudder, but reached port safely, using her propellers to steer.

In February of this year, the vessel lost a propeller blade while passing Gibraltar on her way to New York. She had to run at reduced speed through the gale, which at times blew seventy-five miles an hour. Her steerage passengers were kept below decks. On one occasion a great sea swept over her port bow. It crashed against her forward deckhouse, broke rails, and tore away a companion ladder from the steerage to the promenade deck. The lost propeller blade and the severe weather made the steamship a day late on the trip.

The record voyage of the Prinzess Irene was made in a race to bring in a $1,000,000 cargo of Italian wines before the present tariff went into effect. She beat the law by only a few hours.

The Prinzess Irene was built at the yards of the Vulcan Iron Works, Statin, Germany. It was intended to use her principally for the German-Chinese trade and she was especially fitted for the comfort of passengers in the tropics.

The vessel is fitted up with every device of modern shipbuilding for the comfort and safety of her passengers and the handling of her cargo. She is 525 feet in length, has a beam of 60 feet and a depth of 38 feet. Her registered tonnage is 10,881 tons and displacement 21,000. She is equipped with reciprocal engines of 9,000 horse power and is driven by twin screws. The main saloon seats 165 persons. The steamship has a capacity for 324 cabin passengers. She can carry 1,500 in the steerage.

PASSENGERS OFF, LINER STILL FAST. The 1,720 Passengers of the Stranded Prinzess Irene Safe in Quarantine. TRANSFERRED IN FIVE HOURS. Transfer Made in Record Time with No Accidents to Mar the Work. CAPTAIN TELLS HIS STORY. Every Precaution Taken, So That the Accident is Incomprehensible to Him—Left on the Irene with the Crew. The 1,720 passengers, all but 235 of them from the steerage, of the stranded North German Lloyd liner, which ran aground before dawn on Thursday morning on Fire Island, are aboard the Irene’s sister ship, the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm, at Quarantine, waiting to be landed at the Hoboken pier of the company 5 o’clock this morning.

The transfer of the passengers was made yesterday afternoon while a heavy sea was running. It was accomplished in the record time of five hours and ten minutes and was without accident. Tugs and lifeboats working in concert furnished the means of the transfer.

The Prinzess Irene, manned now only by her officers and crew of 380 men, is lying where she struck on Thursday morning. Her stern has been pulled a few degrees away from its original position, but otherwise the situation of the boat is unchanged. Life savers predict that it will take a week—perhaps longer—to move her.

Capt. Peterssen gave an interview in his cabin aboard the Prinzess Irene yesterday afternoon to a reporter for THE TIMES, who reached the Irene from the Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm. The Captain told of the bad weather encountered since his ship left Gibraltar and of the difficulty he had experienced in taking observations. He explained that the last day or so was sailed by dead reckoning and that when he struck the sandpit he thought his vessel was seven miles off shore.

Carrying a full equipment of wreckage apparatus and a large crew, the wrecking lighter . . . Seymour left the harbor late yesterday in tow of the tug Charles T. Gallagher to go to the aid of the Irene. The lighter should reach the stranded steamer this evening.

CAPT. PETERSSEN’S STORY. He Tells a Times Reporter of His Voyage and Accident. This interview with Capt. von Letten Peterssen, master of the stranded North German Lloyd liner Prinzess Irene, was obtained at 1 o’clock yesterday afternoon in his cabin on the Irene by a reporter for THE NEW YORK TIMES, who succeeded in landing at Quarantine late last night.

Capt. Peterssen said: “We left Gibraltar on Monday, March 27, at 6:05 P.M. and had rough weather to the Azores with west northwest winds. On April 3 there was very stormy weather, with a twenty-five mile north northwest wind. On Tuesday, April 4, it was so hazy at noon I could not take an observation by the sun.

“I managed, however, to get a start a 6:50 o’clock that night, which was the last observation I made. From that time, until we struck on the bar at 3:55 yesterday morning, our course was laid by dead reckoning. The position of the ship, as I made it from the observations taken by the star, was latitude 29:24 north and longitude 63 west.

“On Wednesday, April 5, the weather at noon was very hazy with light rains and I could not see the horizon. I had soundings taken every hour, beginning at noon that day and found that they compared with those taken on the previous voyage in clear weather.

“At 8 o’clock that night we ran into a heavy fog and reduced our speed to four knots, just enough to keep steerage way on the ship. All the watertight bulkheads were closed as usual when the first blast of the fog horn sounded and they were kept shut until we were aground.

“The soundings were taken all through the night every hour, and there was nothing to indicate that we were running into the land. At 2 A.M. yesterday I was on the bridge with Second Officer Hoennecke and Fourth Officer Vessering. There was a lookout in the bows and one in the crow’s nest. The fog lifted then, and I told the lookout forward to go into the crow’s nest with the other man and keep his eyes open for the Fire Island Lightship.

“Going by the soundings I judged that the ship was fifteen miles to the south of the lightship. I laid the course five degrees to the north and allowed two degrees for drifting, and believed that we should pass seven miles south of the lightship.

“A few minutes after four bells (2 o’clock) I gave the order to go full speed ahead, which is fourteen knots an hour. The horizon was clear four or five miles ahead. A 3:30 I was on the bridge and could not see any land.

“The ship was drawing 22 feet aft and 19 ½ feet forward. Suddenly, at 3:55 o’clock, I felt a shock as her keel went over the bar, and I knew that we were aground. I stopped the engines and then went full speed astern immediately in hope of getting her off, but she did not move.

“The deadlights were lowered over the ports on the steerage deck to that the immigrants could not be alarmed at seeing land at hand when daylight came, and also in case of danger of the water coming in.

“The ballast tanks were pumped out, and I had the ship listed over to 45 degrees. With the aid of one good tug I could have got her off but the wind rose and blew at the rate of twenty-four miles an hour from the southwest, which set her up again on an even keel.”

Capt. Peterssen added that he had been eleven years in command of North German Lloyd liners in China, Australia, Argentine, and the Atlantic trade. This is his fourth year as Captain of the Prinzess Irene, and he has never had an accident before. He was confident, he said, that the ship would float at high water at 2 A.M. today.

The passengers of the Irene tell of a stormy trip. No observations could be made for three days. The Captain, looking ahead, saw what he supposed was part of the open sea, but which was really Great South Bay. The strip of sand, separating it from sea, was concealed by the fog. The vessel brought up with a shock. All the passengers have words of praise for Capt. Peterssen.

There was some cheering at dinner on the Wilhelm tonight, and a eulogy of the skipper and praise for the officers and crew of the Irene.

  An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision. --  James McNeill