Between their visits to different ports they had to deal with the seas. Twice during the second leg of the cruise the fleet encountered rough weather, once just prior to entering Auckland, and the second time before arriving in Yokohama on October 12th and 13th, 1908. This was a typhoon that sailors talked about for the rest of their years. Three of the ships each lost two lifeboats. One ship had its foretopmast carried away and its wireless telegraph put out of commission for four days. Three ships lost men overboard. One of the men was drowned, but the other two were rescued by following ships under thrilling circumstances. One division took 5 days to re-join the group. This storm delayed the fleet's arrival in Tokyo Bay by one day. Many of the items that had been pre-printed for the fleet's visit had to be re-done for the change of dates.
Photographs of this event were taken on several ships observing the other ships. Brown & Shiffer completed a set of postcards that had at least 10 cards. These cards were reproduced and sold for years afterwards. These included cards from different storms during the second leg of the cruise, including Minnesota bringing fleet mail from Honolulu just prior to arriving in New Zealand. The other photographs in this collection include Wisconsin, New Jersey, Nebraska Rhode Island, Virginia, Louisiana, and Georgia taking waves over the bow. Brown & Shiffer were stationed on the Georgia.
