Coastal Trader has close call in gale

Press, 28 February 1980, Page 6

Coastal Trader has close call in gale

The Coastal Trader sailed from Lyttelton yesterday afernoon after narrowly escaping damage when she entered the inner harbour in the early morning. The ship, as usual, arrived on time on her regular voyage from Dunedin to Lyttelton and to Auckland. She passed through the moles at 7.10 a.m. and swung about to put her stern to the linkspan at the Gladstone Pier roll-on terminal when a south-westerly gust caught her broadside on. “She went across the harbour like a rocket,” said the port operations officer of the Snipping Corporation (Mr J. Cotter). “She was blown right across the harbour by a gust of between 50 and 60 knots. There was nothing the tug Canterbury could do; there was nothing the ship could do. Both were exerting full power, but the wind was to 0 i strong. “It was a hair-raising experience, and she was lucky not to suffer serious damage.” Mr Cotter said. The Coastal Trader rammed broadside on into the ends of the No. 2 and No. 3 wharves but, luckily, suffered only superficial damage — a few dents and a few patches of paint scraped off. She was secured to the ends of the two jetties while the tug went round to her port side and took a pilot aboard. By 9.30 a.m. the

Coatal Trader was secure at the roll-on linkspan. The “meat in the sandwich” was the tug Canterbury which, between the 2500-ton ship and the wharves, lost her gangway and suffered what the Deputy Harbourmaster (Capt. J. M. Partington) called “superficial damage.” The Coastal Trader was subsequently examined by Marine Division officials and surveyors and pronounced fit to sail for Auckland. At the time she struck the two wharf ends, the inner harbour was blustery and the water rough. At the east side of the No. 2 wharf were eight barges of soda ash recently discharged off the Austral Lightning, and at the Nd. 3 wharf were the Wild Gannet and the Saleve. A crewman in the Wild Gannet, who saw the event, said: “I was scared. Who iwouldn’t be, with the whole broadside of a ship coming at you sideways, like a bat out of hell across the harbour.” Mr Cotter said the crew and officers of the Canter-1 bury did “a magnificent job,” but there was not enough power in the tug, nor in the Coastal Trader, even with her bow thruster working, to counteract the gale. The Lyttelton Harbour Board’s tug Godley was in dry dock, undergoing annual survey at the time.