Lautoka On Vila Reef

Lack of Navigation Aids In South Pacific

THE Carpenter Line ship Lautoka went aground on Malapoa Point, when entering Port Vila, New Hebrides about 6.30 a.m. on February 5.

She was there until high tide on the evening of February, 7, when, with the help of a line from the French ship Amplifort, her own engines and the tide she got off. It is understood that there was damage to her hull.

Lautoka had been in the Solomons, and was on her way around the Groups, pick ing up cargo. The reason for her strand ing is not clear. The submerged reef where the Lautoka went up extends from Malapoa Point into the harbour entrance.

The extent of this reef was marked by a buoy until about 18 months ago. Evidently it sank about that time, and has not been

replaced.

The business of getting into Vila appears to be very much a matter of by guess and by God. Captain George O’Brien, of Sydney, who has recently been up that way delivering a small ship to Santo, reports that although the latest charts show the lead-lights into Vila as being quick-flashing white lights, they are, in fact, red, stationary lights. They used to be as the chart says they were—but they have been changed and not reported.

There is no harbour master in Vila at the present time.

That ships occasionally go up on reefs in the South Pacific is not surprising.

That so few go up is a miracle. The whole area bristles with uncharted reefs and islands. Apart from harbour entrance lights, the lights on the thousands of other hazards to navigation in the whole area, Suva to New Guinea, could be counted on the fingers. Some parts of the coast of New Ireland and Bougain ville and certain groups of islands in the area have been wrongly placed on charts for years.