Owners of Port Bowen Optimistic

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 175, 27 July 1939, Page 7

Owners of Port Bowen Optimistic

Ship Should Move With Spring Tides

I UNLOADING OF CARGO DIFFICULT PROBLEM Per Pres* Association. WANGANUI, July 26. Tho masters of the four tugs now located at Castlecliff and tho owners of the stranded Port Bowen, the Commonwealth and Dominion Line, are all optimistic that when the 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 lank of sand on which she grounded a week ago. Between that outer bank and the beach where people bathe is a deep and sometimes lagoon-like area of water which at high tide is as much as 30ft. to 40ft. deep. Bwimmers who traverse that deep water find themselves on an out bar of sand which at times could perhaps be called a beach. What hopes 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 tho outer bank of sand. A conference of the masters of the tugs was held to-day and Captain b. E. Gregory, marine superintendent of the Port Line, who has been in charge of the salvage operations since they began, came ashore to assist in making plans for tho future. To those who understand the sea the present position of the boat 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 point of view of the masters of tho tugs, however, will be whether the cargo on 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 6he bo 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 in the roadstead her loading at Wanganui was expected to take three days, the cargo to be put aboard including 20,000 carcases of frozen meat (mutton and lamb). If it would take three days at least to load the ship when all her power was available for lifting cargo from the 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 engine* have to remain silent. It was stated to-day, however, that when the weather moderates and the ship is steady it will bo safe to put steam into her boilers again and so create power, but if tho 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 RaDgitikei River in January, 3024, had to be fully unloaded and she floated off when least expected with an exceptionally high tide and a shore to sea wind, the assistance of one tug also, the Terawhiti. The installation of a temporary lighting plant on the Port Bowen was put in hand to-day when a generator weighing three-quarters of a ton was taken on board in sections.