SHIPPING: No Oil

The lights went out, the heat went off, the U. S. liner President Harding floundered in the Atlantic Ocean like a toothpick in an inky brook. Passengers groped about their staterooms in search of fur coats; the cooks burned hatch covers and dunnage in their stoves. The President Harding was completely out of oil. No land was in sight. Captain Theodore van Beek assured everyone that Halifax (Nova Scotia) was only 19 miles away, that he had dropped anchor, that tugs were bringing oil. . . . The President Harding finally reached New York Harbor last week, six days behind schedule.

Said Captain Van Beek: "It was one hell of a trip. ... We had rough weather from the time we left Cherbourg until we reached Halifax. We had difficulty even getting into Queenstown. The storm reached its climax two days later, when the waves were 60 feet high, and the wind had a velocity of 110 miles an hour. . . . The leak probably was the result of a rivet being worked loose by the laboring of the vessel. It was found there was no danger to the vessel and that only one of the four oil tanks was affected. I put the vessel's head toward Halifax and succeeded in coming within 19 miles of the port when our three tanks were finished."

Concerning the night without oil, Prince Louis de Bourbon of Spain, one of the 551 passengers, said: "We had no fear, even though our feet were cold."