Islanders Adrift For 64 Days May Be Lost In Gale

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27907, 2 March 1956, Page 11

Islanders Adrift For 64 Days May Be Lost In Gale

(Rec. 11.30 p.m.) HONIARA (Guadalcanal). March 1. Attempts by rescue ships to reach survivors aboard the drifting islands vessel Arakarimoa failed today in the face of heavy seas and a 50-mile-an-hour gale. The medical vessel Betua and the other rescue ship Myrtle w’ere forced to take shelter from the storm in Marau Sound. Further attempts will be made to reach the disabled Arakarimoa and a party of survivors who were brought ashore by canoe when the weather improves. The rescue vessels were unable to reach the mission station where 12 of the are waiting for medical attention. The Arakarimoa, missing with 27 persons aboard for 64 days, was found today drifting off the south coast of Guadalcanal. She set out from Tarawa, in the Gilbert Islands, for a 24-mile trip on December 28 and was found 1200 miles away. Rescue canoes took 12 persons suffering from exposure and malnutrition off the ship, but six are still aboard

without food or water and drifting m heavy seas towards the reefs. There has been no word of the fate of the other nine of the 27 who were aboard when the ketch sailed from Tarawa.

Searches for the Arakarimoa were called off on January 24 when it was feared that she had foundered during the violent hurricanes which had been raging in the area.

News that the ship was missing was not made known outside the islands until February 3. The 27 who sailed on the Arakarimoa are believed to have been 12 crew members and 15 passengers, mostly natives.

The Arakarimoa, an auxiliary ketch, sailed from Tarawa on December 28. 1955, in company with a sister ship, the Aratoba. Both ships were in sight of each other until midnight on December 28. when the Arakarimoa increased speed and went out of sight. There was no sign of her when the Aratoba arrived at her anchorage at Tebikerai in the Gilbert Islands.