DISABLED VESSEL

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 225, 19 June 1936, Page 10

DISABLED VESSEL

Fishing 1 Craft Ashore

By Telegraph—Press Association

Hokitika, June 18.

The starting handle of the engine, of the fishing vessel Tiare Auani, which went to sea on Tuesday morning, broke during the afternoon and the vessel has had to remain at sea since,

This morning an attempt was made to sail over the bar, but the wind fell and the vessel drifted into the breakers, washing ashore half a mile northward. The crew of three are safe. They had been short of food and water for some time.

The launch Tiare Anani was originally built in Wellington, nearly three years ago, for Captain E. H. Wilson. Her history though brief, has been eventful. Originally she was intended for the heebe-de-mer trade at Pitcairn Island, and the small atoll Oeno, 70 miles distant. A beamy, ketch-rigged ves<T, about 45 feet long, she is a double-ender, designed for surf work, and therefore of shallow draught. She was fitted with a Thornycroft gasoline engine. The Tiare Anani lay for over a year at the boat harbour, Wellington. She was an object of some interest, as it was stated that she was to be used in connection with an expedition to Cocos Island, to search for treasure. In April, 1935. the launch left Wellington for Hokitika, and the West Coast, and ever since has been down there, Last December she was reported to have sprung a leak through bumping on Greymouth bar ns she put to sea. She was beached in heavy surf, the five persons on board at the time, one of them a woman, reaching shore safely. The ship figured in the news again about three months ago, when a fisherman was washed overboard and drowned.