RICHARD WALKER / RWALKER@STARBULLETIN.COM
At Kakaako Waterfront Park, Lance Takara and his
nephew, Triton Ramos, 3, watched the disabled
Matson container ship Maui being towed
yesterday back to Honolulu Harbor.

Matson ship returns
due to mechanical trouble

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By Nelson Daranciang
ndaranciang@starbulletin.com

A Seattle-bound Matson container ship was forced to return to Honolulu yesterday because of mechanical problems.

The Maui was scheduled to leave Honolulu Harbor at 7 a.m. but delayed its departure 45 minutes because of the problem, the harbor operations manager said.

At 12:43 p.m. the Maui radioed the harbor for clearance to return to Honolulu. It had gone as far as Diamond Head before it turned around.

"It's a mechanical problem, so they brought it back to the pier so the engineers can determine what is wrong and fix it," said Bal Dreyfus, a Matson vice president.

Three tugboats towed the Maui back to Pier 10. It returned to port at about 2 p.m.

Dreyfus said the repairs can likely be done so that the Maui can head back to Seattle within 24 hours.

"We should be able to make up the time so it won't disrupt our schedule," he said.

The Maui has a 1,000-container capacity. It arrived here Saturday night from Oakland, Calif. It is one-fourth of Matson's trans-Pacific fleet.

The Maui travels between the West Coast and Hawaii every other week.