Wreck of a Timber Ship.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2401, 15 April 1890, Page 2

Wreck of a Timber Ship.

[per press association J

Inveroargill, April 14. News was received late on Saturday of the wreck of the barque Emilie, which left the Bluff on 25th ult. with a cargo of timber for Port Pirie, under charter to Mr J. G. Ward. The day after leaving, the vessel was struck by a squall and thrown on her beam ends. Captain Small and seven men were washed overboard. The vessel drifted into Doughboy Bay, Codfish Island, south of Stewart Island, and between forty and fifty miles from the Bluff. The survivors, consisting of the mate and three men, landed and ( walked to Mason's Bay where they fell in with a party of mutton-birders. On receipt of the news Mr Ward telegraphed to the Premier, who authorised the despatch of the Bluff Harbor Board's tug insearch of the castaways. She found the party at Mason Bay, and returned to the Bluff at 12.45 a.m. to-day. The survivors came in by train and were taken to the hospital. The mate is very weak. The Emilie was a barque of 720 tons, a Nicaraguan vessel, and last from Melbourne. She had 461,570 feet of timber on board for the New Zealand Pine Company, which was insured for £1350 in the New Zealand and Union offices in equal shares. The insurance on the vessel is yet unknown. Later. Bluff, April 14. The Awarua returned from the search for castaways of the barque Emilie at mid-' night last night, bringing four survivors including the chief mate. It appears that the morning after the vessel left the Bluff, when just losing sight of land a N.W. squall struck her and laid her on her beam ends, tremendous quantities of water washing over her. An attempt was made to launch a boat, but a falling spar cut it in two. The captain and one man in it were drowned. The fore and main masts were cut away and the vessel righted, but while this was being done six more men were swept overboard. The survivors lashed themselves to the mizzen rigging, and drifted towards the West Coast of Stewart Island'for five days without food, being unable to leave the rigging on account of the violence of the sea. The vessel drove on shore at Doughboy Bay and broke up. The survivors got ashore and were rescued by a party of muttonbirders on an island further along the coast. The survivors who are much knocked up, the mate being in a deplorable and delirious state, were sent to Invercargill hospital this morning.