SHOWBOAT DESTROYED BY FIRE

Southland Times, Issue 23651, 28 October 1938, Page 6

SHOWBOAT DESTROYED BY FIRE

DELIBERATE END TO SHIP USED AS CABARET (Special to The Times) AUCKLAND, October 27. Stripped of everything useful, a shell of what once had been the sleek American four-masted schooner, Columbia, on the Honolulu run, then successively a coal hulk in the Auckland Harbour and a floating cabaret, the Showboat, as she became known, was beached at the northern end of Rangitoto Island early yesterday morning and destroyed by fire. The Auckland Harbour Board’s tug, Te Awhina, moved away from the eastern reclamation with the Showboat in tow at 6.30 yesterday morning. When they arrived off Rangitoto the tug transferred the tow to two launches, and at nine o’clock C.ie Showboat was beached and the launch crew scrambled on board to light the highly inflammable materials with which the hull had previously been filled—dozens of worn motor-car tyres, innumerable lengths of useless timber and kerosene, tar and similar fuel. Then the men hurriedly left the hulk. A series of small fires quickly spread throughout the ship. Flames swept over the sides and around the two masts that had been left standing. By 11 o’clock the fire had completely gripped the Showboat. Fragments of burning material dropped into the water and were quenched, gaps appeared in the hull and over everything hung a heavy volume of smoke. It was not until mid-afternoon that the fire was spent, for the vessel ha<U been stoutly built. All that remained of her was burned debris.