DASHED ON ROCKS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 56, 8 March 1937, Page 9

DASHED ON ROCKS

LAUNCH NEAR SYDNEY

SIX MEN DROWNED

THREE SURVIVORS

United Press Association—By Electric Tele, graph—Copyright.

SYDNEY, March 7,

Six men were drowned and three jthers were saved only after the most desperate efforts by rescuers, when the 32-foot launch Voyager was washed ashore at the foot of the cliffs between North Head and Blue Fish Point this afternoon.

The Voyager had taken a party to .a fishing ground 20 miles north of Sydney, but a high wind and a rising sea forced them to turn back towards the harbour.

When they were nearing Sydney Heads the engine failed and the launch soon was at the mercy of the waves.

Of the three men saved, two were thrown on to the rocks by the sea and subsequently had to be brought 400 feet up the sheer cliff face. The third clung to a piece of planking for nearly four hours until picked up by lifesavers. in spite of tremendous seas, boats were lowered from the pilot steamer Captain Cook and a member of the crew risked his life in swimming with a rope to the Voyager.

One rescue party, trying to reach the two men who were thrown on x t 6 the rocks', was trapped for several hours by the rising tide and the "force of the seas. ' ' '

The Voyager's last anchor had given way when a seaman from the Captain Cook got a line aboard. The teaman then returned to the pilot steamer, but immediately a strain was put on the line it parted. Attempts to get another line aboard by means of rockets failed.

One man from the launch .tried to swim ashore with a line, but he was unable to climb the ledge of the rock and he disappeared.

Apparently after the launch struck the rocks all except three men were drowned at once. It is believed that some were trapped in the cabin as the launch capsized.