200-MILE TOW TO PORT

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28359, 19 August 1957, Page 10

200-MILE TOW TO PORT

Coaster Damaged On Sandspit

(New Zeaiana Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 18. Leaking water through several sprung planks and with one engine out of action, the 194-ton coaster Tuhoe arrived in Auckland harbour last evening after being towed 200 miles from Opotiki by the coaster Waiotahi. The Tuhoe took a severe pounding from heavy seas when she ran aground on a sandspit inside Opotiki bar 10 days ago. As well as springing planks a blade snapped off one of her twin screws and a propeller shaft was bent, making one engine useless. Swept by heavy seas which stove in one side of the galley and flooded the crews’ quarters, the Tuhoe spent three days on the sandspit. Most of the crew were taken off and quartered in an Opotiki hotel because the cook “couldn’t do much” with a swamped galley. At low tide, the coaster was left hi£h and dry, and trucks were able to drive alongside to take off cargo. Crew members and stevedores toiled long hours unloading 100 tons of general cargo, leaving 30 tons to hold the ship’s bows down. The stranded vessel was towed off the sandspit last Sunday by two heavy bulldozers, and she limped six miles up the coast to meet the Waiotahi off the Ohiwa river bar.