SALVAGE STILL HELD UP

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 256, 27 July 1939, Page 11

SALVAGE STILL HELD UP

Port Bowen Stranded A Week NOT THOUGHT IN ANY DANGER No More Attempts Till Weather Improves .Dominion Special Service WANGANUI, July 26. For the third consecutive day salvage work on the liner Port Bowen has been prevented because of rough seas, which are pounding the coastline off Castlecliff. Tugs and lighters with their crews have remained in port. Though the vessel has been stranded a week today, she is in no danger, as she is on a sandy bottom and there is approximately 20 feet of water at the stern of the ship at low water. No attempt will be made to move the liner till the weather moderates, and those competent to judge state that there is still every chance of getting the ship off when the seas calm. The marine superintendent of the Port Line,' Captain S. E. Gregory, came ashore today to confer with tug masters and also Captain J. Connor, master of the lighter, Kaiwaka, about the placing of anchors and mooring lines as soon as the weather is favourable. He also inspected gear on wharves and returned to the Port Bowen again in the afternoon. It was the first opportunity he had of coming into contact with the masters ashore. A lifeboat was used freely in transferring fresh water and stores to the Port Bowen. Portable lighting apparatus is being taken out in three sections, the heaviest being scwt. It is expected that light will be available tonight. A sidelight of the Port Bowen’s stranding is the number of cameras in evidence at Castlecliff and Wanganui. Camera supply shops have benefited as a result. Wanganui dealers report that since the Port Bowen went ashore at Castlecliff they have had an increase of about 250 per cent, in their sales of films. Printing and developin'.: facilities are also in demand, and Wanganui dealers are swamped with people getting Port Bowen photographs developed. HOPES OF SUCCESS Experts Confer On Plans For Future By Telegraph—Presto Association. WANGANUI, July 26. Tlie masters of the four tugs now at Castlecliff and the owners of the stranded Port Bowen are all optimistic that, when tlie spring tides rise next week, probably on Monday or Tuesday, the vessel will be pulled into deep water. Those who know the contour of Castlecliff -beach are aware that the vessel is now well within the first bank of sand on which she grounded a week ago. Between that outer bank and the beach where people bathe is a deep, sometimes lagoon-like area of water, which at high tide is as much as 30 to 40 feet deep. Swimmers who traverse that deep water find themselves on an outer bar of sand, which at times could be called a beach.

■What hope the tugmasters have lies in not only being able to manoeuvre the ship into that deep water from the inner beach, but in finding a way through the outer bank of sand. A conference of masters of tugs was held today, and Captain S. E. Gregory, marine superintendent of the Port Line, who has been in charge of salvage operations since they began, came ashore to assist in making plans for the future.

To those who understand the sea, the present position of the ship is considered to be more favourable, in that, close inshore, she is less liable to the buffeting from waves breaking on the outer sandbank.

All important from the jxiint of view of the masters of the tugs, however, will be whether the cargo of the Port Bowen can be unloaded in time. An empty ship, they' firmly believe, can be rescued from the position the Port Bowen is in now, but can she be unloaded?

Normally it would take a month, perhaps two months, to get the enormous amount of cargo from her holds. She was loaded at Auckland, Napier, Lyttelton and Picton, and had only two ports to call at before she finally sailed

for England—Wanganui and Wellington.

Given favourable conditions, her loading at Wanganui was expected to take three days, the cargo to be put aboard including 20,000 carcases of frozen meat (muton and lamb). If it would take three days at least to load the ship when all her power was available for lifting cargo from lighters into the hold, it will take considerably more time to extract the cargo loaded at the three other ports. It will be still more tedious and difficult to deal with that cargo if the ship’s engines have to remain silent.

It was stated today, however, that when the weather moderates and the ship is steady, it will be safe to put steam into her boilers again, and so create power, but, if the ship is to be unloaded without power, the task will not be a matter of weeks or days, but of months.

The ill-fated Indrabarah, which ran ashore near the mouth of the Rangitikei River in January, 1924, had to be fully unloaded: She floated off when least expected, with an exceptionally high tide and a shore to sea wind and the assistance of one tug—the Terawhiti.

The installation of a temporary lighting plant on the Port Bowen was put in hand today, when a generator weighing three-quarters of a ton was taken on board in sections.

Because of the bending of some pipes it is impossible for the Port Bowen to get up steam, and it is necessary to wait till the sea moderates and the harbour board can send out flexible pipes, states a Press Association message.