TOTAL WRECK AT APIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4814, 11 March 1918, Page 6

TOTAL WRECK AT APIA.

SCHOONER STRANDS ON REEF. LOSS OF CARGO OF COPRA. The four-masted American schooner Maliukona. 750 tons, was wrecked at Apia on January 19, and has he-, come a total loss (says the correspondent of the New Zealand Herald). The vessel, of which Captain Theodore Johnson, of San Francisco, was in command, had loaded a cargo of approximately 900' tons of copra. When the schooner left her mootings there was a light easterlv wind, and she had also the assistance of. the' motor schooner Manila, with the pilot, Lieutenant Allen, in charge. The wind dropped, and the motor schooner lost 'command, with the result that the strong westerly set or the current carried the vessel on the western reef at the approaches to the entrance of Apia. Every effort was made to save the ship, but within three hours the vessel’s hold was full of water, and the hatches having burst open, the cargo of copra commenced to float out ot the no ct. Nearly all the ship’s gear was saved in a more or less damaged condition. The masts stood for four days, utter which they disappeared, leaving onlv the stump of the jigger-mast standing: A few hours afterwards the wreck was sold by auction to Mi H. J. Moors for £4O. Ihe salvage from tlie wreck is also to be soldThe night after the sale the vessel began to break up. , Captain Johnson’s personal effects, the ship’s , instruments, and the crew’s effects were rescued. An inquiry, lasting several days, was held. The evidence will be forwarded to the United States, where a further inquiry will be held, and a final decision will be given there. . The reefs at the entrance to Apia are now marked bv two wrecks, the Mahnkona on the west and the it. B. Jackson on tlio east, both of which have been destroyed! within a. veal’. jSucli a Rorr v spectacle lias not been witnessed in Apia since the disastrous hurricane of 1889. the value of the two vessels w&s approximately £BO,OOO. * , .