Hopes For Port Bowen’s Refloating

Northern Advocate, 28 July 1939, Page 3

Hopes For Port Bowen’s Refloating

ISpeczai to “Northern Advocate”\ WANGANUI, Thursday. The masters of the four tugs now located at Castlecliff, and the owners of the stranded vessel, 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 bank of sand, on which she grounded a week ago. Between that outer bank and the beach, where people bathe, is a deep, sometimes lagoon-like, area of water, which at high tide is as much as 30 feet to 40 feet deep.

What hope the tug masters have lie in not only being able to manoeuvr the ship into that deep water from th inner beach, but in finding a wa; through the outer bank of the sand. The present situation of the vesse is considered to be favourable, in tha close inshore she is less liable to thf buffeting from waves breaking ove: the outer sandbank. All important fromffre point of viev of the masters of the tugs, however will be whether the cargo of the For 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 she be unloaded? Normally it would take a month, perhaps two to get the enormous amount of cargc from her. holds. 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. It would take three days to load the ship when all her power was available for lifting the cargo from the lighters into the hold; it will take considerably mors to extract the cargo loaded at the other ports. It will be still more tedious and difficult to deal with the cargo if the ship’s engines have to remain idle. It was stated yesterday, however, that when the weather moderates, and the ship is steady, it will be safe to put steam into the boilers again, and so create power, but if the ship is to be unloaded without power the task will not be a matter of weeks or days, but of months.