SHIP DISABLED IN PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25608, 24 September 1948, Page 6

SHIP DISABLED IN PACIFIC

♦ 2200 MILE TOW TO AUCKLAND

PALANA GOES TO AID OF FERNMOOR

(P.A.) AUCKLAND, September 23. One of the longest tows ever undertaken by a merchant ship began in mid-Pacific on Tuesday morning, when the P. and O. Line’.s 11,063-ton motor-ship Palana turned towards

Auckland 2200 miles away, with the crippled London motor-ship Fernmoor, of 4972 tons.

The Fernmoor, bound from Sydney to the United Kingdom with a full grain cargo, called for help when her engines became disabled. The Palana, which left Lyttelton for London on September 15, was diverted. It is expected that the ships will reach Auckland early in October. The first intimation received in Auckland of the casualty was a cablegram to-day from the Fernmoor’s owners, Walter Runciman and Com-

pany, Ltd., of London, to their Auckland agents, Spedding, Ltd. The message stated that the Fernmoor (Captain Lamb) had been stopped with a disabled engine. The 2200-mile tow had been started on Tuesday, and the company proposed to send all replacement parts by air to Auckland. From the brief details in the message it is assumed that some of the bracket attachments on the main engines carrying the piston circulating water have been broken. Overheating has occurred, and some of the major working parts have probably seized and broken. The Fernmoor has threecylinder Doxford engines Well on Way to Panama The Palana formerly well known on the New Zealand coast as the Federal Line’s Sussex, is one of the largest cargo carriers in the trade between Britain and New Zealand and Australia. Commanded by Captain H. Spurr, she left Lyttelton on the afternoon of September 15 with a full cargo of frozen meat and general produce from the South Island. She had covered more than one-third of the distance to Panama when she went to the assistance of the Fernmoor.

The tow was picked up in a position just south of the Great Circle steaming route from Sydney to Panama in a position about 700 miles south-west of Pitcairn Island and-the same distance east-south-east of Tahiti.

A wireless message from the Palana on Wednesday reported that she was making six knots into a fresh southeast wind. To-day the same speed was being maintained. The weather in the area is deteriorating, and the New Zealand Shipping Company’s motorship Pipiriki, 300 miles to the south, to-day reported gale conditions and moderate to heavy rain.