Salvage Cable Snaps

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31079, 7 June 1966, Page 14

Salvage Cable Snaps

(N.Z. Press Association) DUNEDIN, June 6. A salvage team lifted a Bluff fishing boat, the Robert H, 42ft off the ocean floor this afternoon but before the vessel could be brought to the surface, a winch cable snapped and it sank back again. Working on the spot where the Robert H capsized and sank on May 16, six miles off Taiaroa Head, the 90ft Tuatea, largest of the Port Chalmers fishing fleet, shifted the boat a little before the cable snapped.

A salvage attempt was made on Sunday but the weight of the trawl lines

which were still attached to the boat made it impossible to Shift. The trawl lines were cut yesterday but the boat was still too heavy to be brought to the surface.

Assisting this afternoon were two other Port Chalmers fishing boats, the Marion Bay, carrying four skin-divers, and the Elaine, which stood by to offer aditional help. It was the third bid to recover the Bluff vessel. A Port Chalmers youth, Raymond Wickliffe Annan, aged 16, drowned after the Robert H sank. His body has not been recovered.

At a depth of about 125 ft, the divers salvaged a mast, crayfish pot, and a life raft from the Robert H. The life-raft, which was selfinflating and should have been automatically, released

and opened when the boat reached a certain depth, failed to float to the surface when the vessel sank.

Mr C. G. Skeggs, the managing director of Skeggs Fisheries, Ltd., the firm conducting the salvage work, said last night that an attempt would be made to find the Robert H before the weekend. Another salvage bid would probably be made next Saturday, he said. Remains Found Human remains were found in the trawl nets of a Port Chalmers fishing boat, Seawitch, early this morning. The captain of the Seawitch (Mr K. A. Dabinett) said that last night his boat had been trawling within about four or five miles of the Robert H when the remains were found.