Claim: A freighter carrying tapioca nearly sank when a fire in its hold (and the water used to extinguish it) cooked the cargo.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]
A story from several years ago of a ship load of dry tapioca in a harbor. The ship caught fire and burned, and fire departments poured in water. The fire and water cooked the tapioca which expanded and burst the ship. We think we remember reading this as a news story, maybe not.
Origins: At first blush, a story about a ship's nearly sinking in harbor because a fire in its hold cooked its cargo of tapioca (thereby bursting the ship's sides) sounds like a follow-up to the old
In August 1972, stacked timber that the Swiss freighter Cassarate was carrying in
its upper holds caught fire. The crew kept the situation under control by wetting down the smoldering wood for
"It's like a huge tapioca time bomb," said an incredulous fire chief today as he watched the smoldering Fireman earlier controlled the fire which started in timber stacked in the upper holds But the water from the Cardiff hoses seeped down to the lower holds where The water swelled the tapioca and the heat from the flames started to cook the sticky mess. The swelling tapioca — enough to serve a million "It's got to burst somewhere," one said. "It will take dockers a couple of days to clear the smoldering lumber before we can reach the tapioca." 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 But where do you dump 500 truckloads of tapioca pudding?
CARDIFF, Wales, Sept. 14 (AP) — The biggest tapioca pudding in the world is cooking in the hold of a fire-swept Swiss freighter and threatening to split the vessel at its seams.
A followup news report from the next day indicated fire crews were successful in extinguishing the shipboard blaze before the tapioca swelled to plate-threatening proportions:
The atmosphere in Cardiff docks was a bit starchy as 1,500 tons of the stuff cooled down after threatening to burst open a blazing freighter. A spokesman for the South Wales Fire Service said the blaze on board the 15,000-ton Swiss-registered Cassarate had been stamped out. Timber and rubber in the cargo destined for Britain had been damaged but unloaded. But what about the tapioca? "Well," the spokesman said, "it seems to have subsided but we don't know what condition it is in. It is bound for Rotterdam and the Dutch will have to decide whether it can still be used or scrapped." The Cassarate caught fire [five days ago]. Firemen fought the blaze for three days, pumping thousands of gallons into the ship's holds. The water got to the tapioca and the ship turned into a gigantic steam oven. As the glutinous mass swelled, one fire chief likened it to "a huge tapioca time bomb" that was about to tear the ship apart. The Cassarate was reported damaged yesterday but preparing to sail for Rotterdam. Cardiff port authorities said it would have taken
Welsh firemen defused the terrible tapioca time bomb yesterday.
Last updated: 30 July 2014
 | Sources: |
Associated Press. "Pudding Perils Vessel." Chicago Tribune. 15 September 1972 (p. 3). Associated Press. "Tapioca Time Bomb Defused." Oakland Tribune. 16 September 1972 (p. E3).
