OLD GUNBOAT SUNK.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 224, 22 September 1925, Page 9

OLD GUNBOAT SUNK.

BY GELIGNITE EXPLOSION,

TO FIND A BODY. An elderly fisherman named James Shannon, disappeared at Bluff recently while attempting to board the Britannia, on which he was preparing to leave for a trip round Stewart Island. Shannon, a married man with a family, was given a parcel of papers to deliver to outlying settlers. He then apparently walked down to the wharf to board the Britannia, which was moored outside the oyster steamer Loyalty, whose deck he had to cross. v. hen he did not make an appearance a search was made, and the bundle of papers was found on the deck of the Old gunboat Loyalty. The police arranged with the Harbour Board to explode a charge of gelignite under the water near the boats, as it seemed certain that a drowning fatality had occurred, and they considered that the explosion would bring the body to the surface. A charge was accordingly laid and exploded. No body appeared, but to the consternation of all present the Loyalty lurched at her moorings and 6&nk inside two minutes. The Loyalty is an old French gunboat bought in Wellington by the Bluff Fish and Oyster Co., and had for .some time been out of commission. Tbe explosion started the planks and sealed the doom of the old vessel.