NARROW ESCAPE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 278, 20 August 1938, Page 12

NARROW ESCAPE

Yacht’s Rudder Breaks In Storm Dominion Special Service. Auckland, August 19. Helpless because of Hie breaking of the rudder and driven by a tropical storm to within a few feet of a reef, the Auckland ketch-rigged yacht Seaward almost met disaster recently during its cruise in the Pacific. The doings of the crew are described in a letter received from the owner of the yacht, Mr. D. ’Wellington. He is accompanied by Messrs. L. A. Clark and R. Finlayson. Mr. Wellington states that at the time of writing on August 1, the Seaward was near the end of its 700-mile trip round New Caledonia, and it was expected to return to Noumea in a few days. The yacht had called at nearly all places of interest, keeping within the reef whenever practicable. It had cruised through hundreds of miles of island channels and lagoons. “When first leaving Noumea we broke our rudder about 10 miles ou. and had to put back for a week vo have a new rudder fitted,” he says.“Tbe local shipwright made a wonderful job of it and the boat will now turn tn her own length. The old stock had been split for years and we had a tricky time of it with a tropical rainstorm coming down aud the reef only a quarter of a mile away. The crew rose splendidly to the occasion, but we were only a matter of feet away from the reef by the time we bad improvised a makeshift rudder.”