# The Manu'a Ferry.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

I sat with Mariana in the Seaside Garden Club, holding her hand and talking with her. There were no other customers sitting at her tables, so the owner's son, Morris, let her sit with me. After all, I was buying her Kahlua and milk, an expensive ladies drink. The phone rang and Morris picked up the receiver, then called me over to the counter. It was the harbour master... he wanted me to put my crew on stand-by, then report to his office straight away.
The government Manu'a ferry was on the reef near the village on Tau Island, in the Manu'a Group. It seemed her captain misjudged his turn while coming out of the harbour, and a wave caught her at a bad moment. Instead of giving her all the power she had, he had tried to straighten her up by going astern with his port engine. They'd sent their harbour tug, Tortosa, but they wanted Debut on stand-by if she hadn't enough guts to pull her off the reef.
I sat about in the Seaside Garden Club that afternoon with my crew, waiting for the word to leave. When the phone eventually rang, everyone glanced at Morris... then looked at me. Mariana had been rushed off her feet, filling orders for the bar. The afternoon drinking session between four and seven was always a crush, and all three waitresses were working flat out to keep up with the demand. When she saw me put up my thumb, she rushed into my arms to be kissed. She knew that I wanted this job... not just for the money, but the prestige of working for the Samoan government.
Tortosa had been recalled after blowing an engine on her way to the wreck site... the job was ours. They hadn't been watching their gauges when giving her full power, and had cooked an engine... seizing it solid. On her return to Pago Pago Harbour at half past midnight, we collected from her the special 1,200 foot-long six inch in diameter floating towrope they were using, and the marine engineer in charge of the salvage operation.
At 11 o'clock the following morning, Debut was connected to the towrope and took up the strain. Rekus laid on the power down in the engine room, and a 20 inch in diameter column of black exhaust gases hosed 60 feet up into the clear blue sky above her funnel. 
The Manu'a ferry was a ex-military landing craft, that had been converted into a roll-on-roll-off inter-island ferry. As many of these small islands had no wharf facility, a simple sand and gravel ramp was easily constructed to load and unload her cargo. She was carrying a number of vehicles, a hundred or so passenger, plus an assorted amount of general cargo.
The captain of the ferry radioed on his VHF that the ferry was starting to move. The full length of the towrope was clear of the water, with hardly a bow in it. I called the Pago Pago Harbour office on my SSB, informing them that we had traction. I switched my ship's Tannoy to the engine room to let my chief engineer know that the ferry was moving. He assured me that everything was holding together, but the temperatures were shooting up. I could hear the pressure relief valves blowing up in the wheelhouse, and knew that the old girl was giving me her all. Every rivet in her hull was shaking as, yard by yard, she pulled the 140 foot ferry across the reef.
By two in the afternoon the landing craft was off the reef, but tore open her outer hull on the thousand foot pull across the coral into deep water, floating on her double-bottom tanks... a salvage well done. The harbour authority, fearing losing her on the long tow back to Pago Pago Harbour, had sent ahead a small harbour tug used for mooring ships at the wharfs. She towed the ferry back through the passage in the reef, and down the quarter of a mile channel to Tau harbour.
Debut returned to Pago Pago in high spirits and anchored at 2337 hours in her normal spot. Now the governments of the South Pacific Islands would know of her capabilities... she had pulled the ferry off the reef by her own brute strength. She was not referred to as an old rust-bucket any more, everyone now respected her for what she had down in the engine room. She was a tribute to everyone who built these Hull trawlers, and all those who sailed in them. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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