Cutter Abandoned On Ward Beach

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31584, 23 January 1968, Page 1

Cutter Abandoned On Ward Beach

A young Wellington yachtsman, Mr Alistair Anderson, has abandoned his 42ft gaff-rigged cutter at The Needles, off Ward, 28 miles south of Blenheim. Five persons on board were rescued without injury.

When the boom on his cutter, Rona, snapped about 10 days ago, she drifted in close to Ward Beach. A Ward fisherman, Mr Paul Askin, got a line out to the Rona and pulled it ashore with a bulldoze,. Mrs Askin said in a telephone interview yesterday that because there were no boat repair facilities at Ward, Mr Anderson had given the Rona to her husband. Mr Anderson had stripped the cutter of all her fittings, before banding her over. She said that though the Rona was about 75 years old, its kauri planks were in surprisingly good condition. Mrs Askin understood that there were two women and three men in the Rona when she got into difficulties. She thought Mr Anderson had been cruising along the East Coast of the South Island for about two weeks. His original destination from Wellington was thought to have been Picton. He had called into Kaikoura to put off a man with a physical disability and had picked up his crew at Kaikoura for the return trip to Wellington. The Rona, with her schooner bow and black-painted hull, was a well-known Wellington

racing yacht, but because of her old-fashioned design has not been prominent in recent years.