BRAVE SHIP’S OFFICERS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1928, Page 1

BRAVE SHIP’S OFFICERS

CLAN LINE STEAMER ON FIRE. AUCKLAND. Jan. 2. I low the captain and chief engineer of tlie Clan Line steamer. Clan MeWilliam, lost their lives when the vessel was burned and sunk at Yavau, Tonga, on December 2-lth. was learned from wireless messages intercepted by the Niagara while on her way , from Honoluul to Suva.

Captain ML Thomson and the chief engineer, whose name is believed to be •Jackson, were the only persons aboard when they met their fate. They had taken the burning vessel into the stream, one on the bridge and the other in the engine-room, in order to save the wharf from being destroyed. According to the officers of the Niagara, which arrived here to-day, wireless messages showed that the Clan McWillium was a vessel of 6000 tons, which had come from Singapore to load copra for the Continent of Europe. She had a part-cargo of concentrates in the bottom of her holds and had piled up a deck cargo of coal for a long voyage. Possibly through spontaneous combustion, or through the Lascar crew smoking in the holds, the copra, of which about 3000 tons had been taken aboard, caught fire and burned fiercely and ignited the coal on the deck. There were no fire-fighting appliances on the wharf at which she tw berth

The officers and crew did what they could with the pumps and hoses available aboard ship, hut the fire got out of control.

The vessel’s sides became so hot that the wharf was endangered, and the port- authorities ordered Captain! Thompson to take bis apparently’doomed vessel into the stream. He appealed to the white officers and Lascar crew to man the ship, but they refused, saying she was unsafe. There was sufficient steam in the boilers ta take her a short distance from the wharf, and accordingly the captain! went on to the bridge and took the wheel, while 'ho chief engineer, single handed, manned the engines. The crew let go the lines and the Clan Me-William moved slowly away. When she had gone some distance her back broke and, in a few minutes, she sank, taking the two brave men with her.

It is believed that Captain Thompson met his end through becoming entangled in the wreckage. What happened to the (engineer is nob known, but. presumably he was still at his post in the engine-room, when the ship tok her last plunge. The remaining’officers and crew are to ,leave Yavau by the Tofua, and! should reach Auckland on January 23rd. The harbour of Yavau is very* deep, and it is possible that the wreck will not lie a grave menace to navi* gatiom ' ' >' . * .