HIGH PRAISE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 234, 2 October 1937, Page 10

HIGH PRAISE.

WORK OF RESCUERS. BLUEJACKETS SAVED. FINE SEAMANSHIP SHOWN. Auckland yachtsmen to-day paid high tribute to the work of Messrs. H. H. Partridge and C. E. Tilby, who rescued the five seamen from the Naval Base who were blown into the sea about three-quarters of a mile off Karaka Bay when the galley in which they were sailing in the 20-mile race for the Diomede Cup capsized on Thursday afternoon.

Had it not been for the prompt action of the two, yachtsmen say, eight men would probably have been drowned and not three. In carrying out the rescue Messrs. Partridge and Tilby risked their own lives.

The commodore of the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, Mr. H. J. C. fieorge, emphasised the splendid seamanship of Mr. Partridge and Mr. Tilbv, Mr. Partridge being to his knowledge one of the most experienced yachtsmen 011 the harbour in handling small craft. "Had it not been for that knowledge of seamanship," Mr. George said, "no one in that small dinghy—loft and quite open—would ever have made the shore. The feat was the more remarkable by the fact that Mr. Partridge is not a young man. He is over 60 years old." The promptness of the action of the two men was another factor emphasised. If what I read in the 'Star' is correct, and it correspondends with what I have already heard, there was no one on the spot when the accident happened, and no help arrived until after the mer had been rescued. It is clear, then, that if these two men had not been prompt in doing what they did, the seamen out there in the water would have been drowned.

Yachtsmen, he said, did not need to be told °f the seas which could come up in that stretch of water where the capsize occurred, and it was unfortunate that the galley was so far from the others when that happened.

More Praise for Seamanship. ."!• also . wo J u . l . d ,ik / to a <id my tribute to the splendid and successful effort of Messrs Partridge and Tilby," said Mr. A. fc. Oifford, immediate past commo- • 3 e f? uadron - and commodore in 1020-26. 'Mr. Tilby," he added. "I am not acquainted with, but I understand that he is an excellent man in a boat.

Mr. Partridge knew everything that coiild be known about boats, he said, and anyone who was used to handling small boats would appreciate, and would be able to visualise what it meant to a man who was 60 years of age to go out in a dinghy 10ft long with a low jreeboard in one of the worst pieces of broken water in the harbour and get the men aboard.

"When you consider that they were in the last stages of exhaustion, and simply had to be dragged over the side one by one with their clothes doubling their weight, and when you think that if one of the rescuers let one of them s ip lie would have sunk like a stone, the fine effort will be appreciated. Then when the seamen were in the dinghy, the small boat had to be handled in a heavy sea with six men aboard, and with the extra weight of water in it.

Fortunate Two Men Were There. Mr. Gifford endorsed the remarks of Air. George about the promptness of the action. "It was very fortunate for the crew that Messrs. Partridge and Tilby happened to be on hand just when they w ere wanted, because there was no one else there."

He would also like to praise the work of Mrs. Partridge, who passed the information on to the authorities in the city. Mrs. Partridge was her husband's constant companion on the water, and was an experienced yachtswoman.. "With her knowledge of boating, her feelings can well be imagined," he added. Through field glasses she was watching every move of the rescue, wondering every moment if the dinghy would swamp, and knowing that if it did all must be lost.

"It was a big Job those two men did," he reiterated, "and they never hesitated, and never thought of themselves. They did their work like thorough seamen." Another past commodore endorsed what the other two yachtsmen had said, emphasising the fine seamanship shown and the value of the promptness of the action. He added, too, that the work done by those responsible for the rescue of the crew that capsized off Bastion Point was worthy of much credit. They, too, had shown a high degree of seamanship.