FALL FROM YACHT.'

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 253, 25 October 1934, Page 16

FALL FROM YACHT.'

FARMER DROWNED. WIFE'S RESCUE ATTEMPT. REACHED SHORE EXHAUSTED. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WHANGAREI, this day. A fatal drowning accident occurred off historic Lover's Leap, in the Bay of Islands, yesterday afternoon. The victim was Mr. Charles Gerlach, a well known resident of Paeroa Bay. While returning from Russell with his "wife in their 10ft auxiliary yacht, which was under power only, Mr. Gerlach went forward to tidy some gear. Apparently he suffered a heart attack, for, after clinging to the mast stays for a few minutes, he relaxed his hold and fell into the water. !

Mrs. Gerlach made a gallant attempt to, rescue her husband. She circled the boat into the wind, and stopped the engine, threw a rope twice, and then jumped iuto the water, . For a time she supported her husband, but then weakened and was obliged td swim ashore alone. She • landed •in a semiexhausted' condition 011 the Temple Bar Beach, close to Lover's Leap, and walked over the hill to Russell, where sho received • attention from her daughter and friends.

The Government launch Alice, in | charge of Captain Gibbs, and the j launches Korana and Avalon at once 1 left for the scene of the accident. The body was not seen, but the boat was taken off the rocks on to which she had drifted.

Mrs. Gerlach's action is highly praised by the people of the bay. Mr. Gerlach, who was aged about .57, and was a small farmer and firewood contractor, came to the Bay of Islands about 40 years ago and worked at the Masefield Point fish factory on Russell Beach. There are three daughters—-Mrs. Ellen Lubboch and Miss Myrtle Gerlach, both resident in Russell, and Mrs. Stanley Hansen, of Purerua.

Temple Bar is a dangerous reef near Tapeka Point, named by a retired English lawyer. Lover's Leap owes its name to a Maori legend of two runaway lovers who leaped on to the rocks and died rather than surrender to their pursuers.