BOATING FATALITY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1756, 1 November 1905, Page 42

BOATING FATALITY.

MISHAP TO A FISHING PARTY. ONE MAN DROWNED. v NARROW ESCAPE OE THREE V OTHERS. *A party of four men, while out fishing at Island Bay on Sunday morning, met with an accident that terminated in the loss of one of their number—Mr Charles JMcDonald —and the narrow escape of the rest. Mr McDonald, with hi® brother-in-law, Mr Jones,’ foreman for Messrs Odlin and Co., Island Bay, Mr Samuel McMillan, and Mr Alfred Lason, went out in a small boat early in the morning on a fishing excursion. They pulled over to a little island some distance away, and remained there for about two hours. They then started to return to the shore, and were about halfway across when the boat shipped a few seas —there was a heavy swell on—and swamped. Messrs McMillan and Lason clung to the upturned boat, and were rescued a little later by a fisherman. In the meantime Messrs Jones and McDonald swam towards a yacht moored close by. Mr Jones reached it, but Mr McDonald, becoming exhausted or being seized, with cramp, sank before his companions could reach him, and was drowned. Mr. Jones, on being rescued, at o-noe set about giving the necessary information to the relatives of the missing man and to the police. A dragging party, which included a , brother and friends of Mr McDonald and Constable O’Haßoran, of the Mount Cook Station, was formed, and with the help of a fisherman, who made a set of grappling irons to supplement the drag available, they searched the locality for the whole of the remainder of the day until 5 o’clock. No trace of the body was, however, found. The conditions were very unfavourable to dragging operations, the waiter being too rough. The deceased was a single man, and resided at Horner street, Newtown. He was a carpenter by trade, and had been working for Messrs Hunt and McDonald upon the building now in course of erection for the Wellington Building and Investment Society, oh Lambton quay. ,