NOT DROWNED

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 April 1929, Page 4

NOT DROWNED

LAUNCH “MYSTERY” EXPLAINED

(Special to ‘‘Star.”)

AUCKLAND, April 2. The reported disappearance of a man who was fishing from a small boat off Bean Rock lighthouse yesterday afternoon has quite a simple explanation, although it led to a report, made in good faith to the Auckland police, of drowning, and involved a search for the “body.” The mystery was cleared when Air A. J. Reed, of ,26 Speight’s Road, Kohimarama, notified the police that while out fishing at 5.50 o’clock yesterday, a launch bumped into the dinghy ‘he was fishing from, and to save himself from being precipitated into the water he transferred to the vessel that had cannoned into him. The owner of a second launch noticed that the sole occupant of the small craft had disappeared. He returned and made a search of the locality, while Mr Reed and the dinghy were taken to Kohimarama.

The complications over the affair appear to have arisen through Mr Reed being mistaken for a member of the crew of the launch that had upset his boat. “I was out fishing off Bean Rock at 5.30 o’clock yesterday when I noticed a launch approaching me,” said Mr Reed this morning, in giving his version of the occurrence. “I thought it was coming very close so I shouted out. Apparently my warning was too late, for the launch crashed into my dinghy, half turning it over.. When this happened I jumped to safety on to the launch. We returned for the dinghy, which wasdowed back to Kohimarama. There was a launch ahead of me, and the owner of it could z not have seen the incident, although he must have heard my shouts. By the time he turned round I was on the other launch* and evidently he thought I was a member of its crew,” '