HEAVY GALE SWEEPS ACROSS WELLINGTON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18452, 1 May 1928, Page 4

HEAVY GALE SWEEPS ACROSS WELLINGTON.

(Special to the “Star”). WELLINGTON, May 1. A heavy easterly swell set in across the harbour at seven'o’clock last night, and in a short while coastal vessels and Harbour Board craft tied up at the wharves commenced to roll and pitch in. manner not witnessed in Port Nicholson during a quarter of a century. Even H.M.S. Diomede, at the Queen’s Wharf, rolled and tugged at her lines. The Harbour Board’s tug Toia tore one of her bitts out and swung partly away from her berth, but the remaining lines held till a man was put aboard from a ship’s boat. The Kanna. a collier of 1948 tons, had to be shifted at Jervois Quav to escape the full force of the swell, which sometimes reached to within a couple of feet of the wharf decking. A concrete mixing pontoon at the Pipitea wharf sank. The pilots and staff of the Harbour Board had a very busy time until after eleven o’clock in going round and making the various craft safe.