A SEA MYSTERY SOLVED.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12976, 2 December 1907, Page 7

A SEA MYSTERY SOLVED.

It is nearly ten months since the Dundonald, on© of tli© finest fourmasted barques that had ever visited Sydney, left Port Jackson with a full cargo of wheat for the English Channel for orders. She was noted as a fast sailer, and it was expected that she would signal at Queenatown or Falmouth at the end of May or early in June. Months passed by, and no news was heard of the Dundonald, and she was not "spoken" by any vessel. Tho fleet of wheat-laden ships from Australia—one by, one—reached their destinations safely, but still no news of the Dundonald. Vessels which had sailed months after she left Sydney Heads, arrived Homo, bnt th© fourmaster was seriously overdue. The rates for re-insurance on . the Dundonald rose month by month—forty, fifty, sixty, eighty, and then ninety guineas per cent, were paid to reinsure th© missing ship. At last- sh© was regarded as " hopelessly overdue," and then she was uninsurable. The fate of the fine vessel was an unsolved mystery. Had she foundered or had sho been totally wrecked on soma strange uninhabited sboreP No on© could say, and the nam© of th© Dundonald was added to the terribly long list of missing ships. She was ''posted miesing" at Lloyd's, and on October 3rd last th© following baldly-worded but terribly significant notice appeared in "Lloyd's Gaaette" under the heading of "Missing Vessels" :—"DundonakVof Glasgow, official number 99,121, Thorburn. master; sailed from Sydney (N-9.W.) for United Kingdom or Continent on February 16th, 1907, and has not since been heard of." At last the mystery ha® been solved. Th© Dundonald, less than a month out from Sydney, was totally wrecked on Disappointment Island, one of the outlying islands to tho southward of New, -A

Zealand, and in the track of vessels Homeward-bound from Australia round Capo Horn. Captain Thorburn and eleven of the crew were drowned in that awful wreck, but the others managed to reach land safely. Cast away on a desolate island, the little party dragged out- i weary existence for nearly eight uion ths right through the rigorous end stormy winter of the far Southern Pacific, until the Hinemoa happened along and brought the unfortunate men baok to civilisation.

A feeling of satisfaction that the mystorv of the ill-fated Dundonald has been solved will be felt by all, mingled with gladness that more than half of her crew has been saved, but tinged with keen regret for tlie loss of the lives of thirteen of her crew.

. the Dundonald was a__ large steel four-masted barque of 2205 tons gross and 2115 tons net register, her dimensions being:—Length, 284.2 ft; beam, 42ft; depth (moulded). 25ft llin. She wiis built in 1891 at Belfast by Workman. Clark and Co.. and was owned by Messrs Kerr, Newton and Co. (Dundonald Ship Company, Ltd), of Glasgow.