LAUNCH BLOWS UP

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19719, 9 September 1929, Page 11

LAUNCH BLOWS UP

MISHAP AT PINE ISLAND. VAIN EFFORTS TO QUELL FIRE. [THIS PRESS 8peol»l Service.] AUCKLAND, September 7. With a terrific explosion, the harbour launch, Te Awa, blew up, and was completely destroyed, following on a fierce half-hour blaze yesterday afternoon. The launch was owned by Captain Texiera, and was moored at Pine Island with the engine running in order to charge the battery. Captain Texiera, who was on the wharf, saw fire burst from the engineroom and rushed on board to get the tire-extinguisher. Owing to the intense heat, however, he could not get near the wheelhouse where it was kept. Some time after the fire started, Mr B. Maynell, of the Upper Harbour Ferry Company, arrived at Pine Island with a load of passengers, on the launch Tawa, and gave assistance in fighting the flames with an extinguisher from his launchThe fire had, by this time, eaten through the partition into the cabin, but Mr Maynell rushed into the cabin seized blankets and rugs, and jammed them into the hole through which the flames had come, thus getting the fire at the after-end of the launch under control. Unfortunately the aeid in the extinguisher gave out, 'And ■ anotfhe^ t "was* secured from a nearby launch, but, before it could be used, the benzine tank on the Te Awa burst, and flames flashed over the vessel, which was doomed within a few minutes.

Mr Maynell then climbed on the eockpit, and chopped a hole in the bottom, to sink the launch, but the tide was too low, and the Te Awa merely settled in the mud, and blazed until only the belting arid stem were left. The Te Awa was a well-known harbour lannch much used for summer excursions. It was insured with the New Zealand Insurance Company for £6OO.