LANE VICTORY UPDATE : D-Day Ship Breaks Down Near Acapulco

Five days after leaving Los Angeles on a 9,000-mile voyage to England, the restored World War II cargo ship Lane Victory and its crew of retired merchant seamen has been stalled near Acapulco, Mexico, by a malfunctioning boiler. But the ship’s 54 volunteer crew members, whose average age is 68, hope that the ship will be able to make it to ceremonies June 6 marking the 50th anniversary of the D-day invasion on the Normandy coast of France.

“The prognosis is good,” said Bob Lace, treasurer of the San Pedro-based Merchant Marine Veterans of World War II, which owns the 455-foot ship. Lace said radio reports from the ship indicated that oil had leaked into one of the ship’s two boilers. Although the leak was repaired at sea, the boiler has to be cleaned out with chemicals that are available only in port.

Wednesday morning the Lane Victory was 60 miles outside Acapulco, Lace said, and was limping toward the port on one boiler at a speed of 5 knots, one-third its usual cruising speed. If the contaminated boiler can be cleaned in Acapulco, the ship could resume its voyage in a few days, Lace said.

The veterans group, which rescued the Lane Victory from mothballs in 1988 and spent years renovating it, has invested countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars preparing it for the D-day trip. After numerous delays, the ship steamed out of Los Angeles Harbor on Friday while hundreds of well-wishers staged a wharf-side bon voyage party.