LOST AGAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 28, 3 February 1937, Page 19

LOST AGAIN

SHIP'S PROPELLER BLADE

THE CANADIAN 'HIGHLANDER :i

When the freighter Canadian Highlander arrived at Auckland on Sunday with a blade of her propeller missing it was the fourth time that she had arrived at that!port in that condition.1 The mishap occurred when the ship was about 10 days out from Panama, en route from Halifax to Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton, Dunedin, and Bluff, and on arrival at Auckland a diver was sent idown and reported that the blade had broken clean away from the boss. It was not thought that the propeller had hit any obstruction.

The Canadian Highlander and her sister ships, built after the war as "standard" ships, have frequently sufJ fered from propeller trouble. When they were built it was to the order of Canadian National Steamships, but they were recently acquired by the Montreal-Australia-New Zealand' Line, which is continuing with the ; service from northern American ports to Australia and New- Zealand. Some of these one-design vessels, although they have given years of service throughout the world, have apparently suffered through the effect of standardisation, and several of them have developed defects in their screws.

The Canadian Highlander's first experience of the trouble was in 1928, when the vessel was leaving Napier for Auckland. Repairs were carried out. by raising the stern high enough out of the water to enable the prcn peller boss to be exposed. The second accident happened on December 26, 1929, when the ship was en route from Canada to Auckland, and 3700 miles from the New Zealand coast, and' the third occurred on July 19, 1934, the damage being suffered when the vessel' was five days out from Panama en, route from Montreal to New Zealand. None of these three mishaps occurred while the ship was running under her present owners. In all cases the damage was made good at Auckland.

The Cornwallis, another sister ship to the Canadian Highlander, severely damaged her propeller in. May, 1935,' while weathering a heavy sea off the northern coast of New Zealand. A coincidence was that at almost the same time the Canadian Conqueror, en route from Halifax to Australia, was reported to have suffered damage to her propeller, and was proceeding at reduced speed to Melbourne.