Melva In News Again
p. 99 · Read in the full issue
AUCKLAND, March 20.
WITH water and fresh food exhausted, the motor vessel, Melva, 250 tons, bound from the New Hebrides to Wellington, put into Ru-sell, Bay of Islands, to-day.
Melva left Vila with a crew of 13. on March 3. Three days out the crankshaft of one of the twin diesel engines broke.
The ship, limping along on the other engine, ran into extremely bad weather.
Captain G. Halliday said the ship behaved well but was “very lively.”
For ten days the crew had a grim time, with bunks wet and cabins awash. One day Melva made only 13 miles.
In June, last year, Melva ran aground on the Queensland coast on her way to New Guinea but was towed off by an Australian naval vessel.
She is a 114-ft powered lighter, was launched in Auckland in 1946 and is owned in Wellington.
The Rev. Willard and Mrs. Bruce of the Lutheran Mission, Central Highlands, New Guinea, were on leave in Adelaide, SA, in early April.