TOTAL WRECK AT APIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16783, 25 February 1918, Page 7

TOTAL WRECK AT APIA.

SCHOONER STRANDS ON REEF.

I LOSS OF CARGO OF COPRA. [FROM OCTI OWN CORRESPONDENT.] APIA. Jan. 27. The four-masted American schooner Mainkona, 750 tons, was wrecked at Apia on January 19, and has become a total loss.

The vessel, of which Captain Theodoro Johnson, of San Francisco, was in command, had loaded a cargo of approximately 900 tons of copra. When the schooner left her moorings there was a light easterly wind, and sho had also the assistance o[ the motor schooner Manna, with the pilot, Lieutenant Allen, in charge. The wind dropped, and tho motorschoonor lost command, with the result that the strong westerly set of tho 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 buret open the cargo of copra commenced to float out of the hold. Nearly all tho ship's gear was saved in a more or less damaged condition. The masts stood for four days, after which they disappeared, leaving only the stump of the jigger-mast standing. A few hours afterwards tho wreck was sold by miction to Mr. H. J Moors for £40. The salvage from the wreck is also to bo sold. The night after the sale tho vessel began to break up. Captain Johnson'* personal effects, the ship's instruments, and the crew's effects were rescued.

An inquiry, lasting several days, has been held. The evidence will be forwarded to tho 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 by two wrecks, the Malmkona on the west and the E. B. Jackson on the east, both of which have been destroyed within a year. Such a sorry spectacle has not been witnessed in Apia since the disastrous hurricane of 1889. The value of the two vessels was approximately £80,000.