STILL ON ROCKS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22240, 28 January 1947, Page 4

STILL ON ROCKS

STRANDED LINER SALVAGEJ’RELUDE SEVERAL DAYS NEEDED (Sit.) WELLINGTON. Jan. 27. An official announcement that the next move to save the liner Wanganella will involve several days of preparation to make the foreholds air tight gives respite to pressmen, radio commentators and occasional photographers who have been obliged to maintain a constant watch from the shore. Their camp of motor cars has been temporarily abandoned and fixe mght-and-day watch suspended. News from any official source has been impossible to get. Therefore, whatever was happening to the Wanganella had to be discovered by a constant watch. Heavy mushroom anchors to be seen astern constitute a safeguard against the driving force of the southerly storms to which the ship is exposed, but the weather has given little anxiety so far.

Watching the wharves has provided information regarding the possible use of explosives to free the ship of penetrating rocks because the equipment had to be shipped. Thus pressmen have patiently built up a daily story of apparent happenings on the isolated Barrett's Reef and they smile grimly over the complaint of the very reticent shipping authority: “You speculate too much.”

There were no further developments this morning. The weather is still fine and overcast with a light northerly wind.

It is reliably stated that considerable progress has been made in the organisation and supply and it is evident that optimism has increased. While there is more confidence that the operations to save the liner will succeed, no rash predictions are being made. There is a reluctance to indicate when the major effort to remove the Wanganella fi-om the reef is to be expected and no arrangements towards this end were advised at the Huddart Parker Company’s offices to-day Much importance is attached to the compression of air into the damaged and flooded forward holds with the object of inci-easing buoyance. It is stated that the holds are to be sealed above water level and that skilled workers from William Cable and Company Limited, Wellington, engineering firm, who were being assembled this morning for transhipment to the Wanganella will largely be engaged in this particular phase of the operations.

The endeavours to save the liner are rapidly becoming a combined operation on a considerable scale and it is doubtful whether they have precedent in New Zealand shipping history.