THE HAWEA SAFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 34

THE HAWEA SAFE.

SPLENDID WORK BY THE

ENGINEERS.

The Rakanoa, with the Hawea in tow, signalled Crowdy Heads this morning "All well.". The vessels are proceeding to Sydney. It is expected that the Hawea will teach Sydney to-morrow forenoon.

August 30. After the second boat- left, the Hawea continued to drift.

On August 12 the wind increased to a gale, but the ship rode it out broadside on. All the available sail was set in order to get to the westward, but the vessel began drifting eastward on the 16th inst., the wind then blowing from the northwest.

The sails" -were then stowed away to prevent the ship' going further east.

A jpell of fine weather set in, and the engineers set to work to try to place a coupling on the broken shaft. They had to work waist-deep in water-

By means of steel hawsers the .propeller was worked into position.' The engineers were called npon to do dangerous work in the after tank, but they ctuck manfully to their work. ' The propeller was tested, and was found to work well, but it had to be stopped' wcasdonally to enable the coupling to be tightened up. By the 26th the vessel had her engines going.

She made from three to four knots per ihour till picked up two days, later by the Rakanoa. * Even if the Rakanoa had not picked the Hawea up the latter would have reached Sydney to-night -under her own steam. The chief engineer (Mr Mac Lean) and hie assistants, after nine .days' strenuous ■work, were able" to inform the captain that the ship could reach Sydney unaided.

Mr Mac Lean states that the shaft snapped in fine weather. There trere a couple of bumpe, and {hen the engines raced like sewing machines.

The smash was right at the forward end of N the stern tube. It was believed at first that the engineers would be unable to repair it.

During the first 16 days the,, vessel met frith a lot of bad weather, and the engineers could not get near the propeller, but when the weather got fine they had a go at it. First they had to cut away the after cross plate, and this they had to do with such tools as, they had on board. Then they had to cut away the angle irons on each side of the ship, and after that - they had to cut away 18in of the etern tube, which was constructed of iron and which was' ah inch and a-half thrdugh. Following that they had to cut through four inches of stern bush and eight inches of the liner on the broken shaft.

All this had to be done to carry the patent coupling.

After snapping, the propeller had slipped back as far as the rudder would let it, and the shaft had to be got back from the outside. This job took two day 6.

Had the break been a little more aft the propeller would have gone to the' bottom.

,At length the coupling was adjusted, and the vessel had steamed 167 miles towards Sydney when the Rakanoa picked her up.

They had a "four days' job in stopping a leak in the main condenser.

In repairing the shaft the men had to work, in three or four feet of water. The chief steward states that he had

a sufficiency of provisions, but he cut down supplies until the vessel got under lier own steam.

The Hawea never saw Hhe sign of a •Vessel till August 26, when an American ship^poke them the night before they fell in with the tug Advance, which was lookfor the Hawea.

Apart from the drifting, all on boaTd .were comfortable.

August 31

The Hawea was never very far from the coast at any time. She drifted in a eeries of circles.

In' its^ efforts to find the Hawea the ' Union Company has spared neither time ' nor expense, having had at least two of their own steamers and a chartered tug exclusively engaged in the search, to say nothing of other vessels diverted from their Tegular courses as far as the exigencies of the ,111811 and other sen-ices permitted. In addition thereto, several tugs have been sent out as private ventures with a view to possible salvage, and whilst it will doubtless be disappointing to the owners of the latter vessels, it will bo correspondingly satisfactory to the Union Company to know that the missing steamer has been towed to port, by one of their own v<ss<_>ls. Before this was accomplished, however, an area of open ocean nearly 2000 miles square , had been almost completely gridiron id Ly ' the searching vessels at a cost of over j £5000, due largely to the increased coal consumption and to the fact that several of the intercolonial and island steamers have , gone fully 1000 miles out of their course j to assist in the general search.

The Bawea. left Newcastle on July 28 with a cargo of coal for Gisborne, and two days later her shaft broke, consequently she had been drifting- about at the mercy of the elements for a month, during which time the Union Company's officials have been subjected to a good deal of anxiety, and aver that although several breakdowns have occurred to their vessels during the past 30 years, none of them caused so much anxiety or necessitated *such a long search as that occasioned by the Hawea. The Union Company ha 6 cabled to Captftin Read, of the Hawea, congratulating

SYDNEY, Augast 29,

him on the skill, resource, and judgment displayed by him in keeping; the vessel afloat, and especially on his being able to land two parties from his crew at two widely separated points, in order to indicate the course of the vessel's drift, thereby affording valuable assistance to the search, boats. A cablegram has_ also befen sentjto Captain Carson complimenting him on Bis success.