Fishermen dispute salvage rights to stricken Tongan vessel

Press, 13 June 1978, Page 1

Fishermen dispute salvage rights to stricken Tongan vessel

The masters of Akaroa and Lyttelton fishing boats are vying for what they consider are salvage rights to the firegutted Tongan vessel Kemphaan.

The two Lyttelton fishermen who boarded and attached a line to the Kemphaan on Sunday say they went out to the burning ship to search for survivors, after hearing a radio message from the Lyttelton shore station.

Finding no lifeboat, the pair, Messrs W. Dennett and D. S. Ward, decided then to board the Kemphaan to see if anyone was aboard. They drew their 7m fishing vessel Wainoni alongside, and Mr Dennett boarded the ship and attached a line.

But the part-owner of the Akaroa fishing boat Kishmul, Mr E. B. BoydWilson, said last evening that his boat was the first on the scene and that a writ, scrawled on the back of a cigarette packet, was tied with twine to the mast.

The Wainoni, capable of doing 26 knots, passed the Sumner lifeboat on the way to the Kemphaan. said Mr Ward. “The ship was hard to find,’’ he said. “The smoke from the fire was mingling with the low cloud and mist over the ocean.”

On their way to the ship, a helicopter passed over them, presumably the R.N.Z.A.F. Iroquois which rescued eight survivors from a liferaft.

After boarding the ship by means of a boarding ladder, and securing the line, the two fishermen decided to secure a writ to the mast, claiming salvage rights.

“We were alongside, with our line attached, when the tug Canterbury came along,” said Mr Dennett. “The captain of the tug called to us over the loud hailer and acknowledged that we had a line aboard. He then asked if we could take two of his crewmen aboard and transfer them to the Kemphaan.

"We did and, finding the anchor winches frozen, went into the forward hold and disengaged the anchor chain links.” Mr Dennet said . the anchor chains went off “in a shower of sparks.” The anchors, believed to be worth about $lO,OOO each.

and their lengths of chain, now lie on the ocean floor. With the burning ship free to tow, the fishing boat transferred the crewmen back into the Canterbury and helped in part of the towing work, which ended on Sunday evening with the Kemphaan off Port Levy. While aboard the ship, the two fishermen removed the ship’s bell as proof of their being first on board. The bell would be returned when claimed, said Mr Ward. Mr Ward said that there was a light aircraft flying around the ship while they were there, and an Akaroa fishing boat was “standing off at some distance” from the burning ship. While on board the Kemphaan, the two fishermen said they went below in the burning aft section to look for possible survivors.

Contrary to earlier reports. they said, they were not ordered off the ship at any time and, in fact, did all they could to help, even at the risk of their own safety. They said they found no sign of liferafts or any safety gear aboard the Kemphaan. The forward hold, they said, was full of furniture, bedding, and meat and they saw no sign of any fire extinguishers. “Women’s shoes and

gear were all over the place,” said Mr Ward. “The sea was not as smooth as it appeared in the photographs in ‘The Press’,” said Mr Ward. “Really, there was quite a roll.”

The two estimate they reached the Kemphaan soon after 2 p.m.; and it was 10 p.m. and about 80 km later when they finally arrived home. “We did not see the crew of the Wainoni put a writ on — in fact we did not see them in the vicinity of the mast,” said Mr Boyd-Wilson, of the Kishmul.

"We were there first by a couple of hours and it seemed the sensible thing to do to put the writ on the mast. "We could still see our bit of cardboard flapping in the breeze as she was towed awav.” he said. The Kishmul, like the Wainoni, went to the Kemphaan in response to an air sea rescue call for help in the search for survivors. By the time she arrived the survivors had been picked up but two crewmen, Mr G. Warner and Mr T. McNab Went on board to check whether anyone had been left aboard.

In all they spent about three hours on board and later were helped by the crew of the Wainoni to secure a line to the tug

Canterbury, said Mr BoydWilson.

The Ministry of Transport in Christchurch yesterday held a full commission of inquiry into the Kemphaan fire. The. finding is confidential, in that it must first be sent to the Minister of Transport (Mr C. C. A. McLachlan). A representative of the marine division of the Ministry said, however, that there was no evidence to show that the Kemphaan was inadequately equipped with proper safety and lifesaving gear.

According to one unconfirmed report, there was a lifeboat aboard the ship, but it was mounted above the bridge ar.d was one of the first casualties of the fire, along with other liferafts on board. The wireless room was one of the first sections of the ship to be destroyed in the fire, and all emergency radio equipment went up in flames along with the standard communications gear. Whatever other emergency gear might have been required aboard the ship, such as flares and location finders, would have been under Tongan Government regulations. It is thought that such items were possibly aboard but rendered inoperable by the fire, which spread so quickly through the stern part of the ship that noone could get to them.