Youths Rescued From Sea At Piha

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31773, 2 September 1968, Page 14

Youths Rescued From Sea At Piha

(New Zealand Press Association?

AUCKLAND, September 2.

Three youths clung to rocks in boiling surf off Piha today after being swept off Lion rock where they had been collecting mussels.

It took six members of the Piha Surf Club three-quarters of an hour to rescue the youths using a portable line and reel.

members of the surf club had not been at the clubhouse overhauling life-saving gear, the three youths would not have had a chance of getting to shore on their own. The three had been members of a group that had been collecting mussels on the north side of Lion Rock, said Mr Webber.

The club’s senior instructor, Mr B. C. Webber, of Glendowie, swam where they were clinging to rocks about 100 yards off shore. “There was a tremendous rip," said Mr Webber tonight “It took seven or eight fellows on the other end of the line to pull two of us back through the surf to the beach.” Mr Webber said that if

“One or two must have made it to a little rock further out where they filled a bag of mussels before finding that the tide had come in and that they could not get back.

“One of the others came to give them a hand to get back and somehow all three ended up in the drink,” said Mr ' Webber.

“One of them was swept out but managed to grab a rock that was 40 to 50 feet further out than the others,” he said.