TOWED BY AN OXRAY

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 January 1931, Page 7

TOWED BY AN OXRAY

TER Rif FLED FISHERMEN

More like fiction than fact was the experience of three Queensland _fishermen who became entangled with an oxray this week (says a message dated January 5 from the Sydney correspondent of the “Auckland, Star’’). The circumstances surrounding their experience have, in fact, been used in the widest fiction, hut to them it : was grim reality.

They had anchored their motor launch in Tincan Bay, near Gympie, and were preparing to turn in for the night, when their boat received such a. severe jolt as almost to throw it upside down. An oxray—they discovered later —had fouled their anchor chain, and immedately commenced to race way with boat and all. Other launches, were anchored nearby, and when thety heard the commotion they played their searchlights on the stricken craft. By that time the oxray had got well under wav and the launch, with the terrified trio aboard, was racing round the bay at 15 knots. For over an hour the huge oxray towed the launch and anchor at this rate, while other launches chased behind in a, vain effort to overtake the runaway and get a line aboard.

Eventually the oxray tired and a line was made fast. The launch and the oxray were then towed into shallow water. Ail attempt was made to capture the monster; but it- broke free and disappeared. It was, possibly, jus as wejl that it escaped, for the oxray, sometimes called the Devil’s Ray, is a dangerous pet. Some of the species grow to 1.5 feet across—this one was described as an outsize—and will fight anything, in or out of the ocean. They abound in the tropical waters, but are rarely found so close inshore.

A barbed tail like a torpedo is the ox ray’s main weapon of attack, and men who have been unfortunate enough to be pierced bv it, have suffered terrible agony for hours afterwards. Scientists sav that an oxray. is sufficiently persistent, can easily stab a swimmmer to death.