RACE FOR LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 277, 23 November 1927, Page 7

RACE FOR LIFE.

STEAMER STRANDED.

Dramatic Effort To Save

Crew.

GALE ON ENGLISH COAST,

(British Official Wireless.) (Received 1! 0.m.) RUGBY, November 22. Heavy gales during the last two days have caused many shipping casualties and the loss of life would have been much more serious but for the rescue work effected by the rocket apparatus team.

The gale on Sunday night and Monday reached a velocity of 50 miles an hour and was in many parts of the country accompanied by heavy rainfall.

The full fury of the gale was experienced on the east Coast of England and grave fears are entertained regarding the fate of the crew of nine of the motor boat Alaska, whose hull was washed ashore near Montrose, Scotland. The crew included six members of one family.

The crews of three vessels were rescued on the east coast by means ox breeches buoys carried on a line thrown to the wrecks, by land rocket apparatus. The Seltfleet Rocket Brigade in this way brought ashore seven of the crew of the small coasting steamer Mourne in distress off the Lincolnshire coast.

The steamer Djerisha, bound from Emden for the Tyne, went ashore on the rocks at Creswell, on the Northumberland coast, and it was obvious that Imposition was hopeless.

The gale prevented the launching of the lifeboat but the rocket corps succeeded in bringing ashore every member of the crew of 26 men. In the same way the crew of tho steamer Eros were safely landed at Sunderland.

Tlie Dutch oil tanker Georgia was reported to be sinking off Cromer yesterday. Some of were taken off by" another Dutch vessel, the Trent, and although, when the lifeboat approached, there was no one on board several members of the crew have still to be accounted for.

Dramatic attempts were made to save the lives of the fifteen men who were in peril of perishing with the tanker.

When the vessel went aground the steamer managed to take off fifteen of her crew but was driven back by big seas and was unablo to rescue more. Lifeboats from Cromner and Gorleston went out bul? could not get close enough to the Georgia.

They stood by till night and at dawn made other attempts to approach whicli were unsuccessful. The vessel had bet* - )] battered continuously by heavy wave-

and appeared to be in danger of breakin; up.

At noon, to-day the Board of Trade in London received an urgent message from Yarmouth stating that it was impossible to rescue the Georgia men by ordinary methods and urging the dispatch by the quickest possible means of the latest apparatus for life saving. The Board of Trade immediately sent off the apparatus in a high power motor car, instructing the driver to disregard all speed limits. The apparatus, which embodies the most up-to-date scientific inventions, includes a pistol capable of throwing a lifeline 150 yards.

Meanwhile vessels near the Georgia are pumping oil on the water in an endeavour to subdue the strength of the waves and facilitate the getting of lifelines to the ship.

It is hoped that the motor car will reach the scone in time. The latest repoit stated that the Georgia has broken in half and that one-half has sunk a;id fifteen men are clinging to the other half.