SIX MISSING AT SEA

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30610, 28 November 1964, Page 17

SIX MISSING AT SEA

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK, Nov. 27. A Coast Guard cutter carried on a pessimistic search for six missing Norwegian seamen through the night as marine engineers in New York today discussed repairs to the damaged bow of the Israeli luxury liner, Shalom.

While she patrolled the choppy seas 35 miles off the coast of New Jersey, the cut-

ter Cape Strait also kept a searchlight playing on the slowly-settling forepart of the Norwegian tanker, Stolt Dagali. The 300-foot section of the 12,723-ton tanker was slowly drifting north from the point where the 25.320-ton liner sliced through her in the fogbound early hours of yesterday morning. The tanker’s split stern section sank

quickly. After 16 hours of search and rescue operations involving planes, helicopters and six cutters, the Coast Guard put the toll at 13 dead, six missing and 24 rescued—all

I from the tanker. ' Initial moves were made for lan international inquiry which, it is expected, the Israeli and Norwegian Governments will request in accordance with maritime law. The liner sheared 70 feet through the tanker at a slight angle. Helicopters took nine men and the stewardess off the bow section and nine men from a lifeboat hastily launched before the aft section sank. The Shalom picked up another five men. Boats from Coast Guard cutters picked up 13 bodies. None of the liner’s passengers or 460 crew members was injured. The Shalom has a 40-foot long gash, four feet wide, in her bows. Divers went down to examine her below the waterline soon after she berthed in New York today and Zim Line officials conferred with marine surveyors about dry-docking the big liner at one of the New York shipyards for repairs. Coast Guardsmen held little hope for the six missing men. If they had got free from the stern section, they were not expected to have been able to survive the cold waters. Men picked up from the water and from lifeboats were blue with cold after spending only two hours in the wind-whipped waters. The Coast Guard said both ships were equipped with radar.

Captain Avner Freudenberg. the British-trained master of the Shalom, told reporters his radar was operating.

At the behest of a company lawyer, the tanker's master, Captain Kritianbendorsen, declined to say whether his radar was operating —or discuss any other details before the collision. However, Coast Guard officials said, in heavy' seas such as prevailed during the collision, radar scanning suffered from what was known as “sea return” within a certain radius sometimes up to two miles or more. In such cases radar signals bounced back off waves giving false echoes that made pinpointing other vessels hopeless.

5m Turkeys. About 5,000,000 turkeys will be available for Christmas dinners in Britain this year.— London, November 26.