TWO MEN DROWNED

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26220, 18 September 1950, Page 6

TWO MEN DROWNED

BOAT CAPSIZES AT RIVER MOUTH TREACHEROUS CURRENT AT TAIERI BAR (New Zealand Press Association) m DUNEDIN, Sent. 17. Two men were drowned at the Taieri river mouth to-day when returning from a fishing trip. The tragedy occurred about 2 p.m. The men were: James McKenzie, single, aged 45, a fisherman, of Taieri mouth, and Roy Waller, aged 25, married, with two children, a fisherman, also of Taieri mouth. The men left in a boat owned by McKenzie yesterday afternoon. After anchoring at sea they were seen approaching the bar at the mouth of the river this afternoon. No eye-witness account of the actual tragedy was available this evening, but it is thought that the boat, which was heavily loaded, capsized while crossing the bar, and that both men were swept away in the treacherous current at the river mouth.

The launch drifted the quarter of a mile to the beach, and with the assistance of local fishermen the police pulled it to the shore.

A fairly heavy sea was running at the time, and there was no sign of the bodies. The police are maintaining a patrol of the area.

The Taieri mouth has had an unenviable record of drownings and near deaths in the last few years. The currents are treacherous and boats attempting to negotiate the bar are often swept on to it by a “false” wave, followed quickly by a type of breaker which is liable to capsize a laden vessel.