Struck By Huge Wave

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31121, 26 July 1966, Page 1

Struck By Huge Wave

(N.Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, July 25.

A massive wave which crashed aboard the American yacht Moorea about 100 miles off the North Island coast last week did about £l5OO worth of damage.

Today the crew of the 43-foot sloop faced a mammoth job of cleaning up as she lay safe in Westhaven, Auckland. The Moorea is on a world cruise which may last two years and a half. The crew are Mel Baldwin, of the American Columbia Broadcasting System, and Karl Burton, a sales manager, both of Los Angeles. They are making a series of 13 half-hour television films and a number of fiveminute radio talks.

During the storm Mr Baldwin was flung into a deck stanchion, injuring his chest, and was almost swept over the side.

Mr Burton was caught at the wheel when the giant wave struck. It rammed him forward, bending the brass wheel around the binnacle. The wave smashed the hatch door and flooded through the ship, ruining charts, papers and food supplies, and putting most of the electrical equipment out of action.

The Moorea, built at San Diego in timber with an ocean racing-cruising design, may have to go on the slip for inspection. “We have a mast more than 50 feet tall,” Mr Baldwin said. “1 believe the tip of it would have been below the level of the wave crest when we were in the troughs.” The owner of the yacht, a Los Angeles lawyer, Mr H. Gamble, and Mrs Gamble, left the ship at Tonga before the

storm. They were due to leave Los Angeles by air for Auckland tonight.