OLD WRECK DISCOVERED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20721, 14 November 1930, Page 10

OLD WRECK DISCOVERED

GISBORNE HARBOUR FIND. DREDGE BRINGS UP TIMBERS. THEORIES AS TO IDENTITY. [ey telegraph.—own* correspondent.] GISBORXE, Thursday. From the silt of the harbour, lilted bv the buckets of the dredge Korua, lias come most of the skeleton of a lost, ship, the identity of which is as yet doubtful, though it is believed to be the wreck of the Rio Grande, lost some 50 years ago near the mouth of the Turanganui River. There is a suspicion that the keel, ribs and planking brought piecemeal to tha surface by the dredge may bo those of the Agnes, an even older vessel, but this suggestion is discounted by the fact that the Agnes was believed to be of Amen-, j can construction, and some' of the timber revealed in the dredging operations appears to be kauri. The lost vessel rested in the path of the dredge through the site of the Waikanae Basin, where additional berthage is to be provided for'the small craft of I the port. The buckets brought up sections of an anchor chain and as the work progressed it became obvious that the Korua was carving her way through the hull of a sunken ship. Some solid planking, evidently the outer skin of the vessel, was among the first of the evidence and later there came up heavy ribs and sections of decking, with pieces of coal, fragments of iron plating and scraps of rigging. The action of the dredge apparently stripped rib after rib from the skeleton of the vessel and eventually the buckets secured a grip on the heavy timber keel. Though it was impossible to say whether this was complete in the two pieces recovered, their proportions suggested that the vessel was between 70ft. and IGOft. ' in length. Of the Agnes it is said that she was raided in the roadstead and burned by natives, who cast har adrift and allowed her to go ashore upon the Waikanae Beach. There is some evidence of charring upon portions of the timbers recovered, but hardly sufficient to bear out the theory that they are remains of the Agnes. Oil the other hand, there are a number of lumps of coal of a class similar to that produced at Newcastle and it is known that the Rio Grande was wrecked while waiting to discharge a portion of her Newcastle coal cargo at Gisborne. Further-, thpre is the evidence that part of the planking is kauri and it is also held I;>v a carpenter of some experience in shipwrighting that the ribs are of pohutukawa. Though other vessels beside the Agnes and the Rio Grands may have left their bones on the foreshore near the root of the western groyne, the records of the port speak of none that met their end just there.