Stranded In Lagoon

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32017, 18 June 1969, Page 1

Stranded In Lagoon

A Marine Department team which flew to the Chatham Islands yesterday to begin a preliminary inquiry into the loss of two fishing boats, the La Paloma and the Kea, and six men en route to the crayfishing grounds last week, were stuck tn Te Whanga lagoon for more than four hours. The Chathams have been lashed by a force 10 gale, which yesterday swung from south te south-west The Bristol Freighter landed safely on the Hapapu airfield in spite of the wind and sheets of water on the landing strip. To cross the 29,000-acre

lagoon which lies between Hapnpu and Waitangi, the passengers boarded the six-wheel-drive truck, with high, enclosed cabin on the tray, which was recently provided on the authority of the Minister of Transport (Mr Gordon). The Minister was appalled at the conditions for passengers on the 1941 track which had made the crossing until he visited the Chathams early this year. The new truck, which has a wooden guard in front of the engine to divide the water as it ploughs through the lagoon, became stuck. “We had to get a frontend loader and tow the

track out of the lagoon. It was stuck for four to five hours,” said Constable W. Hampton, the Chatham Islands policeman, in a telephone interview last evening.

"The truck just can’t handle the water. It should have a diesel engine, not a petrol one. The water goes over the top, down the air intake, spouts up four feet above the exhaust—and you have to take the head off the engine again. It is not the first time the new truck has been stuck in the lagoon,” he said. The preliminary inquiry into the loss of the fishermen and fishing vessels will begin today.