Deep-sea Trawl Brings Up Fibre-Glass Dinghy

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28559, 12 April 1958, Page 11

Deep-sea Trawl Brings Up Fibre-Glass Dinghy

When an eight-foot fibre-glass dinghy came up from a deep trawl 15 .miles off the Canterbury coast on Thursday, the crew of the Lyttelton trawler Pioneer believed that there are verily “as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.”

On the Thursday before Easter, Mr Keith Duggan, a university student, of 430 Hereford street, was sailing alone in his 22ft shortender yacht, April, in the Canterbury bight after putting out from Lyttelton for a holiday cruise.

About 9 p.m., the semi-hurri-cane which disrupted other shipping overtook him, and he had to drop all sail and batten down. The first big wave carried away his eight-foot pram dinghy, even though it had been securely lashed. The yacht by then was two miles off the Akaroa heads. Mr Duggan went below in the bad weather, and in the calm of morning he found himself 15 miles out from the coast and among 11 ships of the Russian whaling fleet, then on its way to Wellington. Mr Duggan set sail to Lyttelton and arrived late on Good Friday. The Pioneer, on Thursday—a week later —was fishing deep on the edge of the deep shelf 15 miles out from the point known

as “The Three Trees.” The skipper (Mr William Hansen) and his son ("young Bill”) were startled, and delighted, to find an eight-foot fibre glass dinghy in their net.

The dinghy was covered in barnacles and mussels, after only one week’s immersion, but remained in perfect order after scraping. It is worth about £4O. When the trawler returned to Lyttelton yesterday, the owner was quickly traced, and Mr Duggan considers himself the luckiest of mariners.