Clung To Capsized Boat 10 Hours

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31269, 16 January 1967, Page 3

Clung To Capsized Boat 10 Hours

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, January 15. A man called for help for 10 hours on Friday as he clung to his 15ft cabin runabout which capsized near the Point Chevalier reef in Waitemata Harbour.

On Saturday morning, 49-year-old Mr Frank William Henry Townsend, of Logan Lane, Birkdale, was in bed recovering from his ordeal. His boat was overturned by a wave about 3 p.m. on Friday, but it was not until 1 a.m. that Mr Townsend w,as found clinging weakly to it He was too exhausted to be interviewed. His wife, Mrs Beryl Townsend, said he had bought the boat only on Wednesday and took it “for a spin” yesterday afternoon to get the feel of it. “He had stopped for a spell and was standing on the bow pulling the anchor rope in when a wave caught the boat and capsized it,” Mrs Townsend said.

“He was about 80 yards out from the reef and he knew there was about 80 yards of nylon anchor rope. “So he dived under the boat and unleashed the rope. The boat floated on to the reef.”

The reef had protected the boat—with her husband cling-

ing to it—from being chopped around by the waves. Mrs Townsend said she had been out during the day, and when she arrived home at 9.30 p.m. she thought nothing was wrong because she did not expect Mr Townsend home. But when she had received a phone call from her son-in-law, Mr Garth Harkin, at 9.35 p.m., to say Mr Townsend had not arrived as expected, a search was begun. Mr Harkin had borrowed a boat and gone to look for Mr Townsend, thinking he might have had engine trouble. “We telephoned the police for help about 11.45 p.m.,” said Mrs Townsend. It must have been after midnight when two people—“l do not know who they are, but I am grateful to them”— coming back from a fishing trip heard a call for help. “They got in touch with the police and the police launch went out and picked my husband up. That was about 1 a.m.