HARBOUR EXPLOSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23082, 7 January 1937, Page 12

HARBOUR EXPLOSION

SYDNEY TUG SUNK TWO MEN BLOWN SKYWARDS (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Dec. 31. Following a terrific and mysterious explosion, the 50-ton tug Undine sank at a wharf in Sydney Harbour, and another tug, Bustler, berthed alongside it, was badly damaged. Two men aboard each tug were injured, the two on the Undine, Captain Edward Merchant, aged 73, and Norman Dean, aged 46, being blown many feet into the air. It is believed that the bursting of the Undine’s boiler was the cause of the explosion. It was Dean’s second narrow escape from a harbour disaster. He was a member of the crew of the ferry Greycliffe when it was rammed, and sunk by the liner Tahiti in November, 1927. Then he was sent to the harbour, depth: now he has been projected towards the sky. “ I was standing outside the engineroom of the Undine,” said Dean. “There was a deafening roar, and I seemed to whirl up and up in a sphere of black mud. I was.still dazed when I struck the water, but managed to reach a pile from where I was rescued. I touched harbour bottom when the Greycliffe went down. Each experience was as bad as the other.”

Captain Merchant said: “I had just left the engine room and was coiling a rope forward when the explosion occurred. I was skyrocketed into the air, and I had the queer experience of watching my feet as I soared helplessly upward. In falling, I could see the bows of the Undine slipping under the water. I struck the side of the Bustler, and was then plunged down and down. I saw the keels of the boats, and fought my, way up. On reaching the surface I struck out for a pile, and was almost exhausted when pulled up.” Captain Merchant, an old sailingship seaman, said that this was hip worst experience, but he was unhurt, except that he felt a “bit unshipped.” His joints all seemed loosened, he said.

Revealing the tremendous force of the explosion, the lifeboats and davits of the Bustler, weighing nearly two tons, were flung 25 feet into the air against the top floor of the wharf. A 10-foot length of copper piping was found flattened around one of the wharf steel girders. A 10-inch steel file was embedded four inches into one of the shed doors. A massive shed door on the other side of the wharf yras blown inwards. The bridge telegraph of the Undine was blown over a liner at the opposite wharf, and landed on the far side of the adjacent wharf. Rivets and splintered timber were found hundreds of yards away. On the Bustler, Samuel Elliott and William Nolan suffered greatly from shock, . Elliott was flung along the deck, and Nolan was hurled from one side of the cabin to the other, all movable articles falling around him. Both struggled on to the wharf. The Undine had disappeared. At, that moment, the two saw Captain Merchant in the water. They threw him a line, and while Elliott drew him to the Bustler, Nolan leaped on board and dragged the captain in.

After the explosion, the Undine rolled over and disappeared quickly beneath the surface. The Undine, which was not insured, was valued at £ISOO. The Bustler was damaged to the amount of £3OO. Both tugs, owned by Daley and Daley, merchants, were preparing to meet a vessel. The Undine—the oldest tug boat in Sydney—-was built in 1884.