SHORT OF FUEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20307, 15 July 1929, Page 14

SHORT OF FUEL.

STEAMER IN A STORM.

BUNKERED IN OPEN SEA

Having placed 60 tons of bunker coal aboard tho French steamer Commandant. Destremau, off Seal Rocks, tho coastal steamer Belbowrio returned to Newcastle on July 4. The Commandant Destremau ran short of fuel en route from Noumea to Sydney, and was unable to complete the voyage. It was stated on board the Belbowrio that tho Commandant Destremau was badly pounded in a recent cyclone and was forced to use her reserves of coal in fighting through the head seas. Scraps from tho bunkers and wood gathered from various parts of tho ship wero used to eko out the little coal remaining after the cyclone had passed, but by tho time that Seal Rocks were reached it was obvious that tho Commandant Destremau could not make port. Tho anchor was therefore dropped. Tho Belbowrio came into sight of the French steamer at daylight two days later. A heavy swell was running, and it was impossible to lay tho two vessels sido by sido without risk of serious damago to one or both of them, 'lhe master of the Belbowrio thereupon brought iiis vessel within 20yds of tho other, and dropped anchor so that the two vessels lay bow to bow. Wires were then thrown across the gap from each steamer's foro derrick, and the coal which the Belbowrio had brought from Newcastle was sont across in half-ton baskets. The task was completed within three hours.