SHIP'S CREW HALF ROASTED

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 21, 9 February 1937, Page 7

SHIP'S CREW HALF ROASTED

— Press Association.)

Ordeal in Fire at Wharf at Melbourne FIGHT TO SAVE STOCK

(By Telegraph

AUCKLAND, This Day. In the flame and smoke of the fire that caused £500,000 damage at the Victoria Dock, Melbourne, last month, the Port Line steamer, Port NieholBon, which arrived at Auckland from Port Kembla yesterday, narrowly escaped destruction. Lying at the wharf within a hundred yards of the Government cool stores which were ablaze, the Port Nicholson was showered with flaming debi'is and the mooring lines and wooden portionf of her decks were smoking when the 'tugs arrived to remove her to safety. What gave the officers most concern was " a consignment of stud sheep and cattle housed in pens on the after deck. The heat was so intense that the straw Iitter in the pens kept catching alight. Even while the crew themselves were feeling half-roasted they were playing hoses on the animals to kee» thein alive. "While tbe wind remained from the north, as is was when the fire broke out, we were dead to leeward of it," said an officer of ' the freighter this morning. "The stores, which cost the Government £327,000, were all of woodr with shavings packed between the outer walls and linings for insulation, and you can imagine how that burned. The flames were like a crimson ceiling overhead. "Fortunately, the fire was so terrifically hot that the flames went high and actually they didn't touch us, or we wouldn't be here now. But the heat was so intense that where the decks were covered with planking little tongues of fire like match flames contmually flickered up from the wood. "We kept hoses playing continuously on the livestock. Some of them collapsed, but we lost? none, though the straw in the pens dried as fast aB we could pour water on it and several times it burst into flames." As the ship did not have steam up they had no option but to remain where she was and endure the ordeal for the greater part of the afternoon until a tug was available to move her further down the wharf. The officers paid tribute to the seamanship displayed by the masters of the tugs which in dense smoke shifted their ship and the Port Wellington, another vessdl of the same line, to safety.