POSITION GETS WORSE

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 42, 18 August 1930, Page 10

POSITION GETS WORSE

SEQUENCE OF MESSAGES _ j A^ter another blank space messages e»me through again and were picked wa liy the Wellington radio station, that nj* position had become definitely J».SfejMß»,4B^ew^eft'?n? timers; S.O.S.

No. 3 engine-room bulkhead given way. Standing by to abandon ship. ■ 11153 p.m. (New Zealand time): S.O.S. Standing by to abandon.ship. Engineroom bulkhead given way. Position, 4 p.m., latitude 26deg 27min south; longitude, 166deg 05min west. 11.55 p.m. (New Zealand time): Abandoning ship. Sunday morning's messages were more heartening in that it was stated that while all was in readiness for abandoning ship, the pumps were controlling the water in the engine-room. ANXIOUS HOURS. At 5 a.m. a check of the positions of the Tahiti and the Pcnybryu showed that the latter was still 90 miles away. The Union Company announced that the passengers would be transferred when the tramp ship arrived and that the crew might'be temporarily transferred for the night, to retui'n to the Tahiti if conditions permitted in the morning. Yesterday afternoon's messages were that the Tahiti was still afloat. SIGNAL ROCKETS SIGHTED.' At 6.20 p.m. the Penybryn reported and added that she had sighted the signal rockets of the Tahiti and would be up with her in about an hour. The weather was still fine, but overcast. . RESCUE SHIPS ARRIVE. About 9 p.m. the Union Company received a message from the Penybryn that she had come up with the Tahiti and was standing by. The fact that the message stated that the passengers would not be transhipped in the dark indicated that the danger of the liner foundering was less acute than had been thought earlier.

This morning the Secretary, General Post Office, issued the following official report at 8 a.m., based on information received from the superintendent, Earotonga radio station: — Norwegian steamer Penybryn now standing t>y Union Company's steamer Tahiti, which been in disabled condition since early Saturday morning, approximately 460 miles south of Rarotonga... Steamer Ventura also nearby. At 9.30 last night the following wireless message was received in Auckland from H.M.S. Veronica:—Tahiti still afloat,- but listing badly. Penybryn is in company. Ventura arrives daybreak, will take paasengßrss. Tahiti cannot last much longer. Peuybryn has only 100 tons coal. Evidently this is a relay message, picked up by the warship from either the Penybryn or the Tahiti, as the Veronica was not near the scene, having left Suva at 6 p.m. yesterday for Cocoanut Point. At what hour the American mail-boat Ventura arrived is not yet known, nor the manner in which the transport of passengers was carried out, but this morning the brief but very satisfactory advice was received by the Secretary of the Post and Telegraph Department from the superintendent of the Barotongan station:— All Tahiti passengers now aboard Ventura. '