Grounded Freighter Floats Off

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31121, 26 July 1966, Page 10

Grounded Freighter Floats Off

(■New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL, July 25. “She took the corner a little too sharply.” This was the explanation given today by Bluff Harbourmaster, Captain D. B. Rassell, for the grounding of the Japanese freighter Matsumoto Maru in Bluff at 8 p.m. last night.

The ship floated off the mudbanks about 5.20 a.m. today—three hours before a

i scheduled bid by the South- - land Harbour Board tug Awai rua to tow her off.

Today divers are inspecting the hull of the freighter at her berth, but shipping men do not expect to find any damage. Piloted In The ship was being piloted into her berth by Bluff’s Deputy Harbourmaster, Captain R. Bird, who is due to take over as harbourmaster in the near future.

Captain Rassell said that the Matsumoto Maru, which was bringing 10,700 tons of phosphate to Bluff, had sheered too far to port at a crucial moment while coming round a buoy. He denied an earlier report that the freighter’s engines stopped at a crucial moment. She had run aground and had been held there by a strong ebb tide in spite of the efforts of the ship and the Bluff tug to get her back into the channel.

Mr E. C. Mills, the Invercargill shipping manager for the ship’s agent, National Mortgage—J. G. Ward’s, said early this afternoon that he did not yet know whether or not there would be an inquiry into the incident.