Yacht hunt continues

Press, 13 June 1979, Page 6

Yacht hunt continues

PA Suva The missing New Zealand yacht Ponsonby Express called at the island of Kadivu on May 25, according to the Fiji Marine Department. The department said that a schoolteacher on the island yesterday had reported sighting the yacht. Before this report, the yacht had been last sighted on May 23 as it cleared Customs at Lautoka with five persons aboard. The Suva Harbourmaster (Captain E. Lysons) said the Ponsonby Express, which had competed in the Auck-land-Suva yacht race, would pass Kadavu, which lies

.south of Lautoka and Suva, on her way back to New’ Zealand. I Captain Lysons said he no longer believed the yacht was |in Fijian waters, and held fears that it had sunk. ; An RNZAF Orion took off last evening to fly throughout the night in search of the. yacht. The Orion took off from Whenuapai air base at 7 p.m. for what was expected to be a 12-hour search in ideal, clear conditions. It was the fourth Orion flight involved in the search, and took off only half an hour after the third flight I arrived back.

The previous Orion returned with only three of its four engines running. As well as the Orion searches, the frigate Canterbury continued her electronic and visual search of the sea in the general search area but was also unsuccessful. The Christchurch yacht Chantal returned to Lyttelton yesterday after a dramatic fortnight at sea that lent more urgency to the fears ex. pressed by the friends and relatives of the five Aucklanders aboard the Ponsonby Express — Noel Angus, Shirley Clay, Stephen Ball, Bill Kirk, and Kevin Peers.