BARQUE DISABLED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 June 1938, Page 6

BARQUE DISABLED

LOSS OF MAIN TOPMAST IN SQUALL ARRIVAL OFF OTAGO HEADS (Bv Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, June 12. With her main topmast and topgallant mast hanging in a tangle of yards and wire rigging from the mainmast head, the three-masted Finnish barque Penang, en route from Port Victoria. South Australia, to the United Kingdom, with a cargo of wheat, unexpectedly arrived off Otago heads at 2 pm. today and shortly afterward dropped anchor about three miles off shore.

When it was seen that the barque was in need of aid the signalman at Tairoa Head immediately communciated with the deputy-harbourmaster, Captain MacDonald, and at 3 o clock the tug Dunedin and the pilot launch left Port Chalmers to go to her assistance. The ship was found riding safely to about 70 fathoms of cable, and her anchor holding well, and it was decided to leave her at anchor until morning rather than endeavour to tow her to Port Chalmers against a spring ebb tide and a head wind. Although a strong and squally southwest wind and fairly rough sea prevented the master of the tug from going alongside the barque and establishing communication with her, it was obvious from the appearance of the wreckage aloft that the damage to the mainmast was of recent origin, for members of the crew could be seen engaged in making the fallen gear fast to prevent further damage being done by swinging yards and spars. The topmast and top-gallant mast had fallen inboard, but none of the gear had apparently been lost, and so far as could be ascertained by the officers of the tug the only portion of the rigging on the mainmast that was in the water was one end of the mainyard which, having been caught by the spars falling from aloft, had been cocked at an acute angle. The fore and mizzen masts were undamaged.

The Penang was following the route which was most commonly used by trading vessels in an earlier era through the roaring 40’s, in order to have the advantage of favourable winds on the log run to Cape Horn. Apparently she passed to the south of Stewart • Island and was starting to cross the South Pacific when she was caught in the heavy southerly weather which swept over this end of New Zealand during the week-end. She could not have been a great distance from the coast when the mast fell.

The Penang, deeply laden with a full cargo of 40,116 bags’ (3174 tons) of wheat, sailed from Port Victoria on May 19 for Queenstown or Falmouth for orders, and was making that dreaded run of the sailing ship seaman, a winter passage by way of Cape Horn. The ship was 24 days out from Port Victoria when she arrived off Otago Peninsula. The Penang is a steel three-masted barque of 1997 tons gross register, and is one of the 16 large sailing ships owned by Captain Gustav Erikson, of Mariehamn, Finland. Almost the sole surviving “deep water” sailing ships in the world, the Erikson fleet is employed mainly in the Australian grain trade. Mostly they sail out in ballast from Europe to Australia to load wheat at South Australian ports.