SEA TRAGEDY FEARED.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LII, Issue 4578, 12 March 1931, Page 2

SEA TRAGEDY FEARED.

SMALL YACHT SIGHTED ON BEAM ENDS. LOSS OF TWO MEN FEARED. .Nelson, Last Night. The si earner Opihi reported sight - ing 209 yards off Pipins Island, Cable Bay, at 11 o’clock this morning a small sailing craft about 20 feet in length on its beam ends with two masts partly out of the water. The jib was set but the other sails were furled. The boat was painted white and the bottom red with a green ling on the mast. It was too near shore for the steamer to venture closer and too rough to launch a boat. Seeing no signs of life the .steamer, came on to Nelson. The pilot launch was despatched immediately, but saw no sign of the boat. A considerable sea was running. Settlers are searching the coast. New Plymouth, Last Night. With reports to hand that a small \aeJit with sails sel lias been sightid upside down ten miles northeast of Nelson by a passing steamer, tear is felt for the safety of two young men, S. Silvester, lecturer at Canterbury College, and M. C. R. Hudson, it student of Canterbury College, who left New Plymouth last Thursday in an 18-foot yawl-rigged yacht bound for Lyttelton after lheir vacation. Hudson is a son of Air. J. R. Hudson, of Eltliam. The boat, which left New Plymouth at 10.30 p.m. on Thursday, was a dirty white colour and (lew a green flag on which two letters were joined. It had a green deckhouse. Instead of a centre-board a railway rail had been fixed to the boat to give it weight. There were two bunks and two tanks for the storage of water. One of the anchors was a disused lawnmower. The boat was last reported by the steamer Kaitoa off Cape Egmont. It was the intention of the men to call at Durville Island and Pieton.