STRANDED SHIP

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20000, 27 July 1939, Page 5

STRANDED SHIP

PLIGHT OF PORT BOWEN HOPES OF REFLOATATION COMING SPRING TIDES PROBLEM OF CARGO (Per Press Association.) WANGANUI, this day. The masters of the four tugs now located 'ait CastieclifY and the owners of the stranded steamer Port Bowen, the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, ;are ail optimistic that when the spring tides rise next week, probably on Monday or Tuesday, the vessel will oe pulled l into deep water.

Those who know the contour of Castleciiff Beach are aware that the vessel is now well within the first bank of sand on which she grounded a week ago. Between that outer oank and the beach where people oathe is a deep, sometimes lagoondke area of water, .which, at. high tide, is as much as 30. to 40ft. deep.

Swimmers who traverse that deep water find themselves on an outer bar of sand which at times could pernaps be called a beach. What hope the tugmasters have lies in not only being able to manoeuvre the ship into that deep water from the inner beach, but in finding a way through the outer bank of sand. Conference of Masters A conference of masters of the tugs was held yesterday and Captain S. E. Gregory, the marine superintendent of the Port Line, who has- been in charge of the salvage operations since they began, came ashore to assist in making plans for the future. To those who understand the sea the present position of the vessel is considered to be more favourable in .hat close inshore she is less liable to the buffeting from waves breaking on the outer sand bank.

All important from the point of view of the masters of the tugs, however, will be whether .the cargo of the Port Bowen can be unloaded in time. An .empty ship, they firmly believe, can be rescued from the position' the Port Bowen is in now, but can she be unloaded?

Normally it would take a month — periiaps two months' —to get the enormous amount of cargo from her holds. She was loaded at Auckland, Napier, Lyttelton and Ficton, and had only iwo ports to call at before she finally sailed for England—-Wanganui and Wellington. Expected Loading

Given favourable conditions in the roadstead, her loading at Wanganui was expected to hike three days, the cargo to toe put aboard including 20,000 carcases of frozen meat. If it would take three days at least to load • lie ship when all her power was available for lifting the cargo from the lighters into the hold, it will take considerably more time to extract the cargo loaded at the three other ports.

It .will be still more tedious and difficult to deal with that cargo if the ship’s engines have to remain silent. It was stated yesterday, however, that when the weather moderates and the ship is steady it will be safe to put steam into her boilers again and so create power, but if the ship is to be unloaded without power the task will, not toe a matter of weeks or days, tout of months. The ill-fated Indrabarah, which ran ashore near the mouth of the Rangitikei River in January, 1924, had to be fully unloaded 1 . She floated off when such was least expected with an exceptionally high tide and a shore-ito-sea wind and the assistance of one tug, the Torawhiti. The installation of a temporary lighting plant in the Port Bowen was put in hand yesterday, when a generator weighing three-quarters of a ton was taken on board in sections.