DRIFTING LAUNCH

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28216, 2 March 1957, Page 10

DRIFTING LAUNCH

Royalist Goes To Aid

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, March 1. After a search by the Royal New Zealand Air Force had located the missing Angela drifting off the south of the South Island early this evening, the cruiser H.M.N.Z.S. Royalist found the boat again just before midnight after a search by radar. It found the occupants all fit and well. The Royalist is standing by until daylight. A doctor was put aboard the launch by the cruiser, but the condition of the four people aboard the launch, which was two days’ overdue from Half Moon Ba/, Stewart Island, has not yet been reported.

Those on board the launch are the skipper, Mr Maxwell Hardie, arid three passengers, Mrs Duthy, her 21-year-old daughter, and Mr Noel Cleary, aged 30, of Auckland. The passengers are all members of the staff of the New Oban Hotel, Stewart Island. The air search was directed from the R.N.Z.A.F. station, Taieri, after a Search and Rescue Organisation alert. The Royalist left Half Moon Bay to search for the launch at--9 o’clock this evening. The distressed launch was first sighted by Aircraftman R. Lewis, a member of the fire crew at Taieri, who volunteered to help the crew of one of the Devon aircraft in the search. He spotted the Angela from a distance of five miles.

The Devon was piloted by Sergeant Pilot L. E. Giddens, with Acting-Pilot Officer C. J. Krijt as navigator, and Flight Sergeant J. King as radio operator. It took off at 3.45 p.m., and found the Angela at 6 p.m., 14 miles south-east of Waipapa Point, a South Island headland. The latmch left the Neck, Stewart Island, at 11 p.m. on Wednesday. Thd Devon then circled the vessel until 8.15 p.m. when it left the area. The plane arrived Ixick at Taieri at 8.48 p.m., after five hours in the air. Boat Close By

Awarua Radio was informed when the Angela was first sighted, and it was learned that a fishing boat, the Hoho, was only about four or five miles away from the Angela—only about half an hour’s sailing. As it became darker, Sergeant Giddens dropped a flame float and fired flares to assist the Hoho in locating the area, but the attempt was unsuccessful.

There was a strong swell in the sea, but the aircraft sighted two men and a young woman on top of the launch. Mrs Duthy may have been inside the cabin. “Thornaby bags,” containing food and water, were dropped into the water, and the occupants of the launch managed to reach one of them. The Angela was found in the area north-east of Stewart Island. Drift calculations had directed the search, although the boat had drifted rather slower than was expected because a sea anchor had been put out. The boat itself was reported by the Devon’s crew to seem to be in good condition, and not waterlogged.