TO THE WATER’S EDGE

Northern Advocate, 15 June 1934, Page 5

TO THE WATER’S EDGE

CARGO VESSEL BURNED. ONE LIFEBOAT MISSING.EIGHTEEN MEN ABOARD. NSW YORK, June .13. A talc of swift tragedy in the Caribbean Sea —the destruction by tiro of the Norwegian freighter Knut Hamsun (i 1272 tons), with 17 or IS men miss-, ing—was told in a torso wireless message from the United Fruit Company’s liner Zacapa. The lost vessel had-a cargo of nitrates from Chile and was bound for Newport News when she caught afire. She was burned to the water’s edge and sank on Sunday a limit 1-Yi miles off the coast of Nicaragua, near the Quitasnena Bank. The flames spread so rapidly that the members of the crew were forced to take to the lifeboat without sending out an S.O.S. call.

The captain, and Ifi- members of the crew of the Kunt■'Hamsun, after driftin,?; in one of the lifeboats for nearly three days, were rescued by the Zacapa. A'search for'the second boat was abandoned av midday by the Zacapa, which -continued’ its voyage to Havana.

■ •Advices from the freighter’s agent in Panama states that, the missing lifeboat must contain the mate and 17 members of the crew, as the ship list showed then 1 were B.J men on board.

After abandoning the search the Zacapa sent a message expressing the belief that the missing boat would drift to the Cays, off the coast of Nicaragua. Those tiny islands arc known as the Alosqnido and Morrison (.’a vs.