Fishing Boat 30 Hours Overdue

Press, Volume C, Issue 29634, 3 October 1961, Page 14

Fishing Boat 30 Hours Overdue

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, October 2. Preparations for a full-scale search were made today when a 41ft Port Chalmers fishing boat was reported 30 hours overdue. The boat, the Marion, was last seen off Green Island at 4 p.m. on Saturday. She was due to arrive at Port Chalmers at 8 a.m, on Sunday morning but when the vessel failed to arrive and no word was heard from her crew, the Search and Rescue Organisation was notified early this afternoon.

On board the Marion are two men, Messrs Edward George English, a single man, of Port Chalmers, and Colin Moore, a married man, with three children, of Waikouarti Seoior-Sergeant R. M. Schwass, at th* Dunedin Central Police Station, notified the Search and Rescue Organisation when the boat was reported overdue. He said it seemed likely that the motor had broken down and with no power to charge the batteries the men had been unable to use the radio. Tomorrow’s search, which will include an R.N.Z.A.F. aircraft from Wigram, will be based cm the assumption that the Marion has been drifting helplessly since about midnight on Saturday. Captain P M. Kershaw, of the Marine Department, was

on band at the search and rescue centre in the Police Station today. From reports of weather over the week-end, he said that if the boat’s motor had broken down in the vicinity of Green Island, tt could be anything up to 70 miles off shore tomorrow morning. He estimated that the craft would have drifted up the coast from Green Island to just past Black Head. From there it would tend to be blown in a south-easterly direction. Two boats, the Awartea. skippered by Mr R. Ledgerwood, and the Marion Bay. Skippered by his brother. Mr W. Ledgerwood, put out from Port Chalmers as soon as the Marion was reported missing Both boats reported freshening westerlies up to 30 knots off the coast late this afternoon.