The Koyo Maru, a vessel just under 100 tonnes owned by the Ryukyu Company of Okinawa, sank near the Levuka wharf on Tuesday, December 14, 1965.
The Japanese fishing vessel, Koyo Maru No 18, turned turtle when it sank at 12.15pm while it refuelled from a bulk storage tank.
Three men on board the fishing vessel were lucky to escape without injuries from the incident.
According to The Fiji Times article on Wednesday, December 15, 1965, two of the men (the engineer and the cook) managed to jump to the wharf.
The third crew member dived into the sea and swam ashore unhurt.
The vessel arrived at Levuka from the fishing grounds on December 10 and had unloaded a catch of fish.
To refuel, she moved to the north side of the short arm of the wharf with the bows faced shorewards.
The article reported that while the fuel was being pumped into the forward port tank, the Koyo Maru began to list slowly towards the wharf.
Efforts were made to correct the list when it suddenly turned turtle, it bend its steel mast against the wharf and sank stern first in a few seconds.
It was an hour after high tide when the stern was completely submerged.
Only a small portion of the forward part of the keel showed above the surface.
The vessel had three fuel tanks in the sterns and three in the bow.
This newspaper reported that filling of the stern tanks and one of the bow tanks had been completed under the supervision of the ship’s engineer, and work had proceeded on the second bow tank when it capsized.
The normal system of fuelling was to put a certain amount of fuel into one tank and then transfer to a tank opposite to maintain the ship’s trim.
Loose fittings in the ship and some belongings of crew members floated free when the ship went down and the items were quickly salvaged.
The vessel had been fishing under contract to the Pacific Fishing Company, who was also agents for the owners.
At low tide on December 14, the vessel laid on her port side with her bent mast hard against the wharf.
During the afternoon, the crew had salvaged other personal gear with gaffs through the portholes.
A skin diver, assisted only by rudimentary headgear and a hand pump pumped air from the wharf.
He had gone down at 3.15pm and salvaged official books and papers.
It was understood that nothing would be done about salvaging the vessel until the manager of the Pacific Fishing Company (H Morita) communicated with the owners.
The chief engineer in charge of refuelling at the time she sank was Mr Shimashato, aged 24.
