Funnel And Masts Sold

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31782, 12 September 1968, Page 26

Funnel And Masts Sold

(N 2. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Sept. 11.

A Lower Hutt man has purchased the funnel and masts of the Yfahine from the underwriters.

He said today that he did not want his name disclosed. He hoped to erect the masts on his property. “They are too good to cut up,” he said. The funnel is being dismantled by a team of workmen from Proctor’s Reclaim, Ltd, of Lower Hutt, and will

be trucked in sections to the Petone yards of Pacific Scrap and later sent by rail to the mills at Auckland. The foreman from Proctor’s said that he estimated the 25ton stack to be worth about $250 as scrap. The masts were cut off and lifted a fortnight ago. The funnel was deposited on Queen’s Wharf by the Wellington Harbour Board’s floating crane Hikitia yesterday afternoon after several attempts to raise it from the seabed. Because of its contorted and damaged shape it could not be securely packed on the crane’s deck and the crew members were thankful when it was safely on the wharf. The mass of piping inside the funnel was a surprise to the crowd of onlookers gathered to watch the lift Most had expected an empty shell.

More than a dozr n pipes of various sizes, broken at the base, filled the interior, which was coated and splashed with fuel oil.

Ladders giving access from deck level to the covered topping hung in a crazy pattern and several inches of sand covered the funnel’s side, which had lain in the harbour.

Most of the paintwork is covered with small shellfish and weed and it appears from the jagged fractures that it was partly severed from the superstructure when the ship rolled over. The rest of the base has been cut by torches.

The team from Proctor’s estimates that the job- of cut-

ting it up will take two days. The two masts will be taken away from the wharf this week. Their buyer yesterday removed a masthead light from one.

' The New Zealand representative for the underwriters, Mr I. M. Mac Kay, said the removing of the cars had slowed. “They have now removed half the cars,” he said. “The vehicles are all jumbled up in one part of the deck and have to be dragged for a fair distance.” Before the hull of the Wahine could be raised, strengthening steel bars would be welded to the exterior of the plating and to the frames inside the hull, he said.