DROWNED FROM A SPEED-BOAT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22308, 24 January 1938, Page 10

DROWNED FROM A SPEED-BOAT

MAN'S DEATH IN LAKE ROTORUA BODY RECOVERED BY NATIVE <l>tt«SS »SSOCI4TIO» rtI.COBAM.I ROTORUA, January 23. Thrown out of an outboard speedboat while it was speeding at full throttle across Lake Rotorua shortlyafter 7 o'clock on Saturday evening, Charles Walter Day, aged 30, a mail contractor and operator of a parcel delivery service, was drowned about 300 yards off the shore at Kawaha Point.

The accident was seen by Mr and Mrs H. G. Gribble, Rotorua, who were camping at Kawaha Point. Day was thrown out of the boat and sank almost immediately, the boat continuing to encircle the spot at full speed. Mr and Mrs Gribble immediately manned a row-boat and pulled out to the scene with all speed, while a native, Hini Manahi, who observed the unoccupied boat circling in the water from about half a mile away, also set out in an outboard boat.

Robert Rika, who was going down a hill to the lake for a swim, realising that something untoward had occurred, jumped into the water and swam out to the spot, where he began diving in an effort to find the body. Rika a few minutes later saw it lying on the lake bed, in about nine feet of water. He dived down and brought it to the surface. The body was hoisted to Hini Manahi's boat and taken to the shore, but the attempts at resuscitation were unavailing.