The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1902-08-26
THE POSITION OF
A BRITISH BARK

SAN FRANCISCO. August 15.-To be
and at the same time not to be seems
a hard thing to imagine, but neverthe-
less, that is the absurd position of the
British bark BarOda, now i'm this port.
Word was received in this city today by
NJ. A. Newell g. Company that the Eng
lish underwriters would pay on her as
constructive total loss. In otner
words. they will have to make good the
risks they took on her as they would If
she had been wiped out of existence by
wreck, fire or the perils of the deep.
The Baroda is the vessel that was
loated a month ago from the Oregon
coast and towed to San Francisco. She
stranded on August 90, 1901, nine
miles south of Coquille river, while
bound from Callao in ballast for Port
land. The undertow set her firmly in
the sands and a week afterward 1t
was thought that she would make her
grave in the beach. An agent was
sent north to report on the prospect of
salvage operations and his opinion
was that she was so far from deep wa
ter and the chances of floating her
were so small that it would at least
cost more than so per cent of her value
to do anything at all toward saving the
bark with no assurance of success
so he would advise abandonment. Tn
der the English law when repairs
after accident or the cost Of saving a
vessel exceed half of her insured value
she is a constructive loss and the un-
derwriters must pay, as before explain
ed. The companies holding policies on
the Baroda however, were not content
to settle without a try at getting the
craft aflOat, and Captain William
Burns was sent out from Glasgow. His
reputation for doing good work of this
kind was all he brought with him and
getting a crew together here he took
up his abode on the stranded vessel.
Channels We're cut in the sand, the
bark was lightened and every effort
made to get her back to her natural
element, but without success. Finally
winter set in and the Baroda was no
nearer the sea than when Burns
started in Two or three hundred tons
of sand were thrown into her to keep
her upright and her upper yards sent
down. BY this time the task looked
hopeless and a number of local opera
tors took out a policy at Lloyd's that
the BarOda would never get off the land
They got the risk at 20 per cent, and
later when operations were resumed
with no more success than at first the
IA q went up to So
The task was eating up money VOL
fishly, yet the underwriters stayed be-
hind Burns and with true Scottish per-
his reputation that he was fighting for
and he fought to win. He staked
everything on the help of the last
spring tides, and when the water grew
big he was ready. Great steel cables
We're run out to a powerful steamer
and at the right moment two or three
yanks started the Baroda and took her
back toNthe sea.
Before this, however, the owners of
the vessel had abandoned her to the
insurance companies, but it was not
known until today, and therefore while
in reality the local insurers lost they
win on a technicality. The Baroda is
written down as a total loss, and yet
she lies in the bay today quite as strong
as the day Mcmillan & Son turned her
out of their yards at Dumbarton. 1t is
said she is strained a little, but not Sc
riously. The underwriters after putting
her in a seaworthy condition again will
sell her here or send her back to Eng
land to dispose of her. All the penalty
attached to local payments will be
pro rata sharing of the cost of sal
wage, which is reported amounts to
over $50, 600