LAUNCH ON SANDBANK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23965, 15 May 1941, Page 8

LAUNCH ON SANDBANK

ADRIFT IN MANUKAU SEARCH THROUGHOUT NIGHT After a 36ft. launch manned by three men and two boys, all from Onehunga, sprang a leak and drifted on to a sandbank in the Manukau Harbour at, about 7.30 o'clock on Tuesday night, j one of the men and a boy reached the j shore at Blockhouse Bay in a small; dinghy. They set out from the bay in a larger dinghy. but in the meantime the launch had been lifted off the sandbank by the rising tide. The two in the dinghy made a fruitless search and rowed to Onehunga. where they informed the police of the mishap. A patrol was made throughout the night by the Harbour Board's launch .Manukau. At about 2.30 yesterday morning the party on the distressed launch came ashore at Waikowhai Bay and informed the police of their safe arrival, but as the Manukau was then out of touch with the shore it was not until about nine o'clock yesterday morning that an outgoing trading vessel could inform the crew that the stranded launch and its occupants were ashore. The members of the party on the stranded launch were Messrs. Koberc Sherlock, B. Beswick. and Alfred Kllingham, Roy Frederick Fordyce, aged 11, and Barry Clayton, aged 14.