ARCHITECT’S SEA ADVENTURE

Evening Star, Issue 19779, 1 February 1928, Page 3

ARCHITECT’S SEA ADVENTURE

LOST TO ALL BUT HIMSELF For four days relatives and friends of Mr Henry E. White, architect and engineer, of Sydney, and an old Dunedin boy, were searching the sea and coastlands, from Sydney to north of Broken Bay, in an endeavor to trace tidings of Mr White, who left Sydney Harbor in his yacht, Matangi 11., on a pleasure trip to Port Stephens (says a Sydney paper of recent issue). The efforts of Mr White’s friends were rewarded when an aeroplane, piloted by Mr Rupert King, of Mascot aerodrome, sighted the missing yacht and her crew as she was about ,to anchor off Port Stephens. Mr 'White, who was accompanied on the voyage hy his son Edric, Commodore Pullen (ex-R.A.N.), and Captain J. Wheat and Alfred Brown, the two latter comprising the crew of the vessel, recently took over the Matangi 11., which was originally named the Psyche, after she had proved her seaworthiness by sailing under her own power from New Zealand to Sydney. It was the second trip outside the Heads which Mr White has undertaken in the boat. A few years ago, while Mr White was visiting the dominion for the purpose of designing and superintending the erection of new theatres for Messrs Ben and John Fuller, he purchased the yacht Matangi, previously known as the Psyche, and in her sailed all around the coast of New Zealand. He is a competent yachtsman. He left his home shortly after daybreak, and boarded the yacht at the waterfront jetty of his home at Point Piper. The only wireless equipment on board was a, receiving set. The craft was due at Port Stephens the next afternoon. When a telegram announcing his arrival had not been received, and when on the following day the whereabouts of Mr White were still unknown, his family and friends began to experience anxiety. On the next day Mr White’s friends communicated with the various city broadcasting stations, and requested them to ask all ships skirting the coast to keep a watch for the missing yacht, the description of which was explicitly given. The wirless stations responded to the request. The fourth morning dawned with still no news of the missing party. The fact that cyclonic gales had whipped to fury the seas that washed against the coast line increased the anxiety of Mr White’s family and friends. The police were notified of the assumed disaster, and every lighthouse and headland north of Sydney was instructed to keep a. look-out for the storm-tossed yacht. Still there was no news of Mr White and his holiday comrades.

On the fifth clay it was decided to employ the services of a Commonwealth Government pilot stationed at Mascot aerodrome to fly along the coast on a search. Mr Rupert King left Mascot at 3 p.m,. and made a flight along the coast Ho returned at 7 o'clock at night with the first tidings of the missing adventurers. He reported that nearing Port Stephens he had found the yacht anchored off the port, and that reassuring signals and hand-waves from those aboard told the tale that all were well.