PERIL OF THE SEA.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIII, 3 February 1923, Page 5

PERIL OF THE SEA.

I STEAMER’S CLOSE CALL. I I The: crew of the steamer Skipsea, which reached Newcastle recently from Portland. United States, brought firsthand information of the remarkable escape the vessel had last August from appalling disaster. The ehip had been built only a Jew months when it started on a voyage from New York to Korea, with 340,000 1 galfons of case kerosene. When seven days out from Honolulit smoke: was noticed issuing from a cross bunker. The pumps were set to work to extinguish the fire, but volumes of water pumped on the burning material failed to have the desired effect. Captain W. H. Rea decided that the only course was i to open out the coal in the bunker I to get directly at the fire. | The crew of thirty-two men had to , contend for ten days and’ nights against ; fumes and smoke coming up from the , bunker hold. The formidable work of removing 600 tons of coal from the cross bunker was carried on with a con- : tinuous flow of water from the pumps j on the burning mass. ; The outbreak was apparently extin- : guished, but it was necessary to remove j more coal before the fires were comI pletely subdued. With all danger over, the crew saw how narrowly they had escaped a terrible death, for the burning mass cf ; coal was only separated from the cargo ■ of case kerosene by a wooden bulkhead ’ 3in. thick. Three planks were actually ' burnt through, and some of the solder 'in the tins of kerosene was melting l when the crew got the upper hand of the fire. Coat in a space of 7ft high, 24ft wide, and 14ft long (between fifty and sixty tons) had been consumed, and the crew had to dig down 23ft into the bunkers before the burning matter was disposed of. In getting at the fire the coal was thrown anywhere, and the decks were littered with it. Three hundred cases: of kerosene were damaged by smoke and fire, and 4,000 cases by the water poured i#to tne vessel in the effort to cope with the fire.