HELPLESS LAUNCH

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1932, Page 7

HELPLESS LAUNCH

ADRIFT IN HEAVY SEAS. RESCUE BY WAIHEMO. Auckland, Dec. 12. Drifting helplessly with her engine useless, a Canadian fishing launch was picked up and towed to safety by the Union Company’s freighter Waihemo, Captain E. Harris, which arrived at Auckland from Los Angeles this morning. “A gallant rescue of the crew of a stricken vessel during a gale,” was how one American newspaper described the incident, which occurred early in the evening of November 3 when the Waihemo was bound from Union Bay to Ocean Falls to continue loading for New Zealand and Australia.

The chief officer, Mr. J. Ritchie, noticed a small light flashing 'in the darkness no the port bow. It appeared to. be about four miles away, and although the flashes spelt no message in Morse their persistency suggested that something was wrong. A pilot was on board the Waihemo at the time, and he agreed with the chief officer that an investigation was necessary. Accordingly the ship’s course was altered and the Waihemo headed for the flickering light. A fairly heavy sea was running, and it was pitch dark when the steamer manoeuvred to within a short distance of the small craft. It was learnt that she was the Canadian fishing launch Golden West, homeward bound to New Westminster from Prince Rupert with> the summer’s catch of halibut and salmon. The crew of two said that their engine had broken down six hours before that. Their distress signals had been ignored by two other vessels which had passed, and they were in urgent need of assistance. • The sea was too rough to allow a boat to be. launched, and the Waihemo had to be manoeuvred until the launch was near enough to allow a line to be thrown from the steamer. The fact that the launch was drifting all the time made the task more difficult, but at 7.35 p.m., only slightly more than an hour from the time when the distress signals had first been sighted, the crippled launch was taken in tow. The fishermen informed the officers on the Waihemo that if they, had not been picked up when they were they would either have drifted on to the rocks or would have been blown to sea. There was no chance, they said, of getting the engine going again.