Accidents & Offences

New Zealand Mail, Issue 772, 17 December 1886, Page 23

Accidents & Offences

FATAL BOATING ACCIDENT.

TWO LIVES LOST.

A sad accident, by which two young men named Harry Evens and Harry Kaye, residents at Petone, lost their lives, happened in the harbor on Sunday morning. It appears that at about half-past 6 on Sunday morning, four young men—Walter Ramsden, Edward Taylor, Harry Evens, and Harry Kaye—started from Petone in an open sailing boat, intending to go to the lighthouse. When they had got to about half a mile to the south of Somes Island (at about half-past 7) they decided to come back, and accordingly turned the boat round. So far as can be ascertained, it would appear that the sheet was fastened, and as the boat came about a sudden puff of wind caught her. The boat heeled over, filled, and went down till her gunwale was level with the water. Kaye was washed off, but Ramsden swam after him and with considerable difficulty brought him back to the boat. There, however, they found that he was apparently dead, and Taylor, after sup. porting the body for some time, was forced' to let it go. For some time after the accident Evens, Ramsden, and Taylor kept together, though Evens was washed off several times, being on each occasion rescued by his companions. When he had been clinging to the gunwale for about half an hour, however, he was washed away, and his companions saw no more of him. The two survivors, Ramsden and Taylor, having done all that men could do to save the others, now found themselves clinging to the boat in a condition which waß anything but enviable, and with the uncomfortable reflection that they were perfectly helpless and must trust entirely to chance. The boat drifted away round Somes Island, and several hours after she was overturned drifted on to Ward Island, where the two men landed. They stayed on the island for nearly two hours, and then had the good fortune to be taken up by a couple of fishermen named Bartolo Russo and William Lenham. The fishermen brought them back to town, arriving here at a little after 5. The men at once communicated with the police, and then left by train for Petone, both of them having suffered considerably from exposure and cold. We regret to learn that the two men who lost their lives had families dependent upon them. Evens leaves a wife and three children, who reside at Petone ; and Kaye a wife and two children, Mrs Kaye being at the present time in England. Both men

were employes at the Wellington Woollen Factory. A boat’s crew, consisting of Messrs Valentine, jun., Berriman, Edmonds, Smith, and Wheatley were out all Monday searching for the bodies of Kaye and Evens, the -two men who were drowned near Somes Island on Sunday. They had a most tiresome day, as the sea was very rough for their open boat, and although they searched Worser Bay, Ward and Somes Island, aud from the Lighthouse to Petone Beach, they returned unsuccessful. All they found were the grating of the bottom oE the boat in which the men were, near the lighthouse, and the boat itself on Ward Island, with a hole knocked in her bottom.