SALVAGED TUG

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23592, 31 August 1938, Page 5

SALVAGED TUG

SURVEY OF DAMAGE HEAVY BILL FOR BOARD VESSEL WORTH EXPENSE <Special to Daily Times) ; AUCKLAND, Aug. 30. Clearly revealing how quickly the water must have poured into the engine room after her port side had been pierced by the propeller blades of the Federal Line motor ship Essex on August 11, the Auckland Harbour Board's tug, the Te Awhina, is now drawn up for repairs on the board's slipway. She was taken there to-day, the final refloating having been achieved on Monday night, and it is not thought that she will be in commission again for -at least six weeks.

The Chief damage was done just by the engine-room injector pipe toward the back of the superstructure. The pipe was stove in, the stabilising flange cut off and a vertical slit made in the plate immediately aft of the injector pipe. A little toward the stern the tug was apparently struck another blow, the plate here being deeply dented. No deterioration seems to have resulted from the vessel's long immersion, - although she will need a thorough cleaning and her engines will have to be taken down for examination and overhaul. It is not expected that any difficulty will be encountered in putting her back into the board's service as stout and seaworthy as she was before the mishap. No definite sum can yet be placed upon the cost of the salvage, which entailed the hiring of outside machinery, and the repairs, but it is not.expected to be less than about £SOOO.

The tug originally cost the board £.13,000, said the chairman (Mr W. B. Darlow) and at present it stood in the board's books at a value of about £4OOO. "This sum, however, does not in any way represent what she is worth to us," Mr Darlow said. "It has been suggested that we should have left her at the bottom of the harbour or else blown her up, although how we could have done this I do not know. Actually I would say that the Te Awhina to-day is worth about £30,000 to us, for apart from the fact that it would cost about that much to get another tug she still has at least 25 years of ser-, vice in her. It was good business to salvage and repair her." Mr Darlow said that the board would hold an inquiry of its own into the accident after the Marine Department's inquiry had been held. It was stated that no advice had yet been received when the fatter inquiry was to start, although it is expected shortly. On Mr Darlow's motion the board decided to grant up to a week's leave to the men who had materially assisted with the task of refloating the vessel as a mark of the board's appreciation of their work.