Tapioca tanker

by Nick Vagnoni, Posted Jul 12th 2006 @ 6:07PM

Like the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, the story of a Swiss freighter that almost exploded with cooked tapioca is safely behind us but still bears mentioning. In August 1972, the cargo of the Cassarate included timber and tapioca. The former caught fire and the hot water and steam created while dousing the blaze caused the 1,500 tons of Thai tapioca below deck to swell in the oven-like conditions. The Cassarate made an emergency stop in Wales, where the fires were finally extinguished. The hundreds of thousands of portions of tapioca, bound for Holland, never did wind up bursting the ship's hull. A recently updated Snopes page has excerpts from local newspapers that covered the incident.

Filed Under: Food Oddities, The History of...
Tags: cassarate, cooked, dessert, europe, explosion, fire, freighter, oddities, ship, snopes, swiss, tanker, tapioca, wales

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

7-12-2006 @6:45PM cybele said... I lead whale-watching tours and one of the stories that we tell (when we don't have any whales about) is about the wreck of The Dominator in 1961 in Santa Monica Bay.

It was a vessel carrying 9,000 tons of wheat in its hull that ran aground in foggy conditions (and some poor naviation decisions).

They got about half of the grain off in salvage operations, but after a couple of months being left on the rocks and with high seas the hull was breached and water got into the wheat cargo.

The wheat swelled up and split the boat open.

There was a huge explosion of creatures that fed on the briney porridge for months and to this day the local lobstermen swear that cove offers the best catch.
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7-12-2006 @6:55PM Dr. Electro said... I just read this on Snopes yesterday. If the ship had been close to Viet Nam I probably would have dived in with a spoon. After a long enough time on C-Rations a boat load of tapioca wouldn't have lasted very long. :D

I also heard that tapioca goes well with monkey on a stick.
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