TOSSES BY THE WAVES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18706, 12 May 1924, Page 8

TOSSES BY THE WAVES.

! m> —■——- CHILDREN'S LUCKY' ESCAPE BOAT CAUGHT BY SQUALL. GIRL' VERY ■ PLUCKY .FEAT. " GOOD ROWER AND SWIMMER. V [mr TELEOBAPn.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.] v CHRISTCHUECH. Sunday. _ ■ A 12ft:" dinghy, containing - five child- , ren—the eldest being a girl of 13 and.., the youngest a child 1 of two yearsthe family of Mr. J. Burns, chief signalman at -Adderley Head, was blown out into the Lyttelton Harbour during a heavy southerly squall this morning. The children were paddling about in the boat near the jetty, at Little. Port Cooper, when a squall caught the email craft and carried it into the harbour. ,The eldest child, Isabel, succeeded in rowing the boat into compaiative shelter under Adderley Head, where she dropped the anchor. The anchor, however, commenced to drag, and Isabel dived overboard and tried to swim ashore to make the line fast to the rocks. She could not make a landing, ; so she swam back to the dinghy, and ~i with the greatest difficulty regained the boat. A heavy sea . was running, and the girl was hanging on to the gunwale for half an hour before a big sea swept her back '~<\ into the boat. The alarm had meanwhile been given at Lyttelton, : and : the Harbour Board's tug went to the scene. At great risk the tug was manoeuvred to where the . dinghy was tossing about, near the rocks and cliff, and the children ' were, hauled aboard. ■ i' ■ . . • *« ,- : * ' In the course of the rejcue operations a member of the tug's crew was knocked overboard, but he "was quickly rescued. The tug's crew said it was marvellous that - the little dinghy had lived in the sea that was running. The children ap- ■' peared to be little the worse for their adventure. -I" • , ~ ■ 7° * .. -