Boat Stranded In Estuary

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31304, 25 February 1967, Page 14

Boat Stranded In Estuary

The driver of a jet boat which hit a sandbank and was stranded in the middle of the Estuary last night, soaked his shirt in petrol, lit it, and waved the flaming garment above his head as a distress signal.

Two brothers in Redcliffs saw the signal and rowed a dinghy a mile and a half to rescue the driver and his two children.

The jet-boat driver, Mr C. Luchford, of 12 Ontario place, had his daughter, Lesley, aged 16, and son, Allen, aged 11, with him.

Mr Peter Dowson and his brother, Christopher, who rescued the stranded family, said that Lesley hit her head on the boat when it grounded on the sandbank. “The children were screaming when we arrived in a borrowed dinghy—they had panicked in the darkness. It was near low tide, and dead calm. The jet-boat was stuck in the middle of the Estuary on a line between Pleasant Point and Redcliffs.” The Sumner Lifeboat was called out at 8.15 p.m. The water where the jet-boat was stranded was too shallow for the lifeboat to get alongside. The lifeboat crew fired two big flares so that the Dowson brothers could see to effect the rescue of the children and Mr Luchford.

“Mr Luchford was most appreciative of our help. The children calmed down as soon as we got them in the dinghy. They are a lovely family,” Mr Peter Dowson said. He said that he and his brother would go out in their powerboat later in the night,

when the tide came in, and tow the jet-boat off the sandbank.