1,500-Ton Tapioca pudding Nearly Sinks Ocean Liner
         -- The Capital Times, Madison WI, September 14,1972 

     
        CARDIFF, Wales-For a while today the biggest tapioca pudding 
     in the world threatened to split the seams of a Swiss freighter,
     but a dock official said firemen and the ship's crew finally got
     things under control.
        The official said dock workers were unloading the 12,165-ton
     Cassarate, which a fire cheif had earlier called a "huge tapioca 
     time bomb."
        Firemen earlier controlled the fire which started in timber 
     stacked in the upper holds 25 days ago at sea.  The crew kept 
     the smoldering timber dampened until the ship docked here late 
     Tuesday.
        But the water from the Cassarate's hoses seeped down to the 
     lower holds where 1,500 tons of tapioca from Thailand were 
     stored.
        The water swelled the tapioca.  Then the heat from the flames
     started to cook the sticky mess.
        The swelling tapioca--enough to serve a million plates--could
     buckle the ship's steel plates fire chiefs warned.
        The plan is to load the gluey mess onto a fleet of trucks and
     dispose of it.  One report said there was enough to fill 500 
     trucks.
        But where do you dump 500 truckloads of tapioca pudding?
     
      




back to centipede the Wendy Mukluk home page