Current beats divers

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33740, 13 January 1975, Page 2

Current beats divers

(N.Z. Press Association) KAITAIA, January 12.

Sand is rapidly covering the 65-year-old wreck of the full-rigged ship Forrest Hall, off Ninety Mile Beach.

Two divers, Messrs M. Beardsley and R. Stansfield, worked from the beach yesterday 'among the jumbled and twisted plating but the strong current made it impossible to reach the bow. It was murky and boisterous in the surf in contrast to the calm, clear water covering the wreck when it was first seen from a Kaitaia Aero Club aircraft on Friday. NO HEADWAY The divers tried to work along the sides to the bow but they could make no headway across a gap where the ship broke in two. They found the galley and tried to salvage floor tiles but sand came in as quickly as it was moved. They swam around the stump of one of the giant wooden masts with its steel surrounds and sockets for belaying pins, and they saw big chains with strengthening bars across the links leading down into the seabed.

Everything movable has been swept away by the breakers and the huge steel plates are twisted into a shambles. TRY LATER

Apparently a northerly rip exposed the hulk. When similar conditions set in again, the divers will make further efforts to recover some relics. The Forest Hall was bound from Newcastle, New South Wales, to Chile, with 3000 tons of coal when she ran ashore in fine weather.