Endeavour Arrives On One Propeller

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30954, 10 January 1966, Page 12

Endeavour Arrives On One Propeller

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, January 9

The Antarctic supply ship H.M.N.Z.S. Endeavour arrived in Wellington today and will enter dry dock tomorrow for inspection of a damaged propeller.

Two replacement propellers and shafts have been sent from Auckland. The Endeavour arrived in Wellington on one propeller after the other was damaged in heavy ice at McMurdo Sound two weeks ago.

Although the Endeavour received a battering from a severe storm at 60 degrees south on its return trip, it was never in danger. > In spite of its disabled port propeller the ship averaged more than seven knots during the 14-day trip. The journey usually takes nine days. The ship’s officers are not sure when the mishap occurred.

“It could have happened at almost any time,” a spokesman said. “We did not know anything was amiss until we felt vibrations on our way out through the ice channel.

“We sent three divers down and they came back with the sad news. But it was too cold for them to stay down long

i enough to determine the full ’extent of the damage.” I The ice conditions at the sound were the heaviest in years. Three American icebreakers were continuously engaged keeping a 10-mile channel clear The ice was so thick in places that the Endeavour had to be clamped behind the U.S.S. Burton Island to get through. Officers think the propeller may have been damaged during this time. Large dents in the hull bear testimony to the thickness of the ice. As well as its normal complement of six officers and 64 men, the Endeavour carried 12 civilian passengers and a few naval reservists to McMurdo Sound.

Four of the passengers—two boy scouts and two boys’ brigade members—did not return on the ship. They will fly out later.

The Endeavour’s next trip south is scheduled for February 11 from Lyttelton.