Shallows Found 2 Miles From Wreck

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31084, 13 June 1966, Page 1

Shallows Found 2 Miles From Wreck

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 12. Breakers indicating shallow water have been discovered by H.M.N.Z.S. Inverell only two miles from where the wreck of the collier Kaitawa lies in 130 feet of water.

The shallows are not shown on present charts. They are only two and a half miles from Cape Maria Van Dieman.

The uncharted shallows lie four and a half miles from the spot on the Pandora Bank where the Kaitawa’s crew believed themselves to be when they sent out a distress call at 9.05 p.m. on May 23.

If the Kaitawa struck the Pandora Bank at the place referred to in the distress signal the ship moved six and a half miles in a northerly direction to her present resting place. Navy divers discovered a gaping hole in the side of the wreck on Saturday. The full extent of the hole, which measured at least 10ft by 6ft, was hidden by a large outcrop of rock where the ship was resting. The leader of the diving team on board the fisheries patrol ship Inverell, Lieutenant N. L. Merrick, said that steel plates stood out about four feet from the Kaitawa’s side. Ribs were still fastened to the plates.

Lieutenant Merrick, who made the last dive to the wreck with Able Seaman R. L. Cormack, said that when he looked through the hole he saw no sign of the ship’s coal cargo or the hatch cover. He thought the hole was in the No. 3 hold. The two divers also foun4 that the hatch covers on Nos. 1 and 2 cargo holds had gone.

There was no cover on what could be seen of hatch No. 4. The divers found two depressions running a total of more than 60 feet along the bottom of the 305 ft hull. Lieutenant Merrick said there were no signs of explosion by the hole in the ship’s side. He saw signs of slight damage to part of one of the two propellers. The four ships in the search for the wreck, the Inverell, the training ship Kiama, the research ship Tui, and the Marine Department’s trawler W. J. Scott, returned to Auckland today. Because the superstructure was gone no attempt was made to look for the ship’s liferafts.

Lieutenant Merrick said it was decided not to try to find out the state of the Kaitawa’s engine-room.

Divers had considered swimming into the engine-room to study, among other things, the ship’s telegraph system. The telegraphs, if they were

not disrupted when the ship sank, might have shown what speed the Kaitawa was doing. Lieutenant Merrick said this was a low priority job as well as being dangerous and difficult. The only way now to get into the engine-room would be by cutting a hole in the ship’s side or using an explosive. The captain of the Inverell, Lieutenant H. R. Hume, and Able Seaman R. H. Anderson made an earlier dive to the wreck on Saturday. They found that the Kaitawa’s bows were pointing north-east and not west as thought previously.