YACHTSMAN'S LAPSE OF MEMORY

Grey River Argus, 20 June 1947, Page 5

YACHTSMAN'S LAPSE OF MEMORY

Daring Foar-day Cruise SYDNEY. Junp 19. A 45-foot yacht, which, arrived tat Coffs Harbour, on the northern coast of New South Wales, last night, had only one person aboard —a bearded distraught man, who could not remember where he had come from. He said he thought he had brought the cutter single-handed from Wellington, a voyage of over 1300 miles, but could not be sure. Later he told the police he might have come from Sydney.

The arrival of the yacht set the Coffs Harbour police a puzzle. After medical attention, the man said early this morning that he was Gordon Taylor, of Sydney, but could not remember his address. He could not remember how 7 long he was at sea, but said he had fought a succession of storms. When he put into Coffs Harbour he thought it was Jervis Bay. He stated that as a member of the R.A.A.F. he had been subject to black-outs. The yacht is a Marconirigged cutter with a 65-foot mast. It is believed she may be the Hutiekah 11, well-known in Sydney for many years.

A Coffs Harbour fisherman commented on the expert manner in which the vessel was hove to, but later noticed that something appeared to be wrong. One man rowed out and was so concerned at Taylor’s ■condition that he brought him ashore. Taylor said that the last thing he remembered was the harbour at Wellington, New' Zealand, that he had eaten nothing but bread for some days, and that his first sight of the Australian coast w z as a lighthouse. He had followed the coast north, and had trailed a fishing launch into Coffs Harbour as night fell. VESSEL IS NOT FROM WELLINGTON P.A. WELLINGTON, June 19. Commenting on a cabled report from Sydney of the finding of a 45fcot yacht on the northern coast of New South Wales, the Commodore of the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club, Mr M. Manthel, said to-day that he had ascertained that the yacht was not from Wellington, and that it had not visited this port in recent times.