YACHTING TRAGEDY

Evening Star, Issue 19443, 29 December 1926, Page 6

YACHTING TRAGEDY

BOAT CAPSIZES YOUNG MAN DROWNED It is rarely indeed that the holiday season is not marred by a fatality of one kind or another, and the toll of lives lost during such a period has been added to by a drowning fatality which occurred on Dunedin Harbor last night, as tho result of which a youth named Roy Simpson, aged eighteen years, who resided with his parents at 662 Castle street, lost his life. Simpson and a companion, Victor Hodge, wore sailing the 10-foot sailing boat Foam from Broad Bay to Mncandrew’s Bay, and when the sail was being gybed the boat capsized off Grassy Point, the occupants being thrown into the water. Both boys clung to the boat for some time, and then decided to swim to the shore, which was about 300yds distant. Simpson fell back, but Hodge, who believed him to bo safe, struggled to safety, and was picked up by a motor launch in an exhausted condition, after being in tho water for fifteen minutes. _ In the meantime, Simpson had disappeared, and though several boats and launches were quickly on the scene of the accident and cruised, about till dark, no sign of the body was seen. Simpson was a strong swimmer, though it is understood that his heart was likely to be affected after he had been swimming on his back for some time, and when last seen he was using the’ back stroke. It was deceased’s first season at boating, and he usually sailed in a larger boat named tho Sea Hawk. Hodge, the owner of the boat, was also a good swimmer, and has been boating for about two seasons. It is a matter for conjecture as to how the accident happened, but Hodge states that Simpson was at tho tiller at the time tho boat capsized, while Hodge was in the bow, setting the spinnaker. Evidently the rudder was lifted clear of the water, and all control over the boat was lost. As far as is known, no life preservers of any sort were carried in the boat. Dragging operations were commenced'this morning, but the body had not been recovered by noon.