Ketch Safe In Port After 340-Mile Tow By Launch

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29235, 20 June 1960, Page 10

Ketch Safe In Port After 340-Mile Tow By Launch

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND. June 19. The Fijian ketch Macuata, her engine useless, sails blown out and her running rigging carried away, was towed into Russell at 8 o’clock tonight with her crew of nine safe and well, but dog tired. “All the way back. 1 kept thinking I’d buy a bicycle and retire from the sea,** said the veteran skipper of the Macuata. Mr R Lidgard, of Auckland, in a telephone interview "Now I’m home. I’ve forgotten all thoughts of that There’s nothing I can’t fix, but I think well have to be towed on to Auckland. Describing the voyage as 1 the most trying of his life, Mr Lidgard said engineers tuned up the engine perfectly before the 83ft ketch sailed from Suva on June 8. "But we didn’t reckon on sediment in the fuel pipes leading from the tank to the engine,” he said. "The engine kept cutting out every 20 miles. "Then we hit the first storm The crew was battling huge seas and the engine gave out altogether "Our navigator. Warrant Officer Michael Tiller, of the station at Lautbala Bay was hit on the head by the boom He was badly hurt I dosed him with aspirin and hotwater bottles and he recovered. "The vital staysail blew out of its bolt-rope, and the other heavy sails were torn apart We were broaching, and 1 was worried tha' the huge stern seas would wreck our rudder We were quite out of control . ? ext day we ha <* a lull but the Jay after we hit another L. was magnificent Fijians are game blokes.

“We had re-roped the staysail just as the Ngaroma arrived. The Air Force directed her to us with great thoroughness, but we were dead lucky to have Jib Lawler skippering the Ngaroma. He left Auckland at two hours’ notice to sail 340 miles out to sea to find us. We owe a good deal to that man. “We were under tow for more than 48 hours.” Mr Lidgard said. "We put out 40 fathoms of our anchor chain as a spring to the tow rope, and the Ngaroma hauled away We were going through pretty big seas, and we could see the Ngaroma disappearing in the troughs of waves, and rising to meet the next one. She did a great job. We had nothing to do but steer.”