PASSENGERS AND CREW SAFE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 8054, 7 March 1912, Page 1

PASSENGERS AND CREW SAFE

Anxiety in Wellington regarding the overdue vessel Himitangi was ended at 3 o’clock yesterday afternoon, when the Marine Department received a message from Cape Palliser stating that the steamer Gertie had just reported that the Himitangi was stranded at the Chathams and that the crew were standing by her. The message was confirmed a few hours later by the arrival of the Gertie, one of the three vessels sent in search.

The scene of the stranding. The spot where the vessel lies is marked with a cross. Petre Bay is thirteen, miles wide and about ten miles deep. Port Waitangi lies in the south-western part of the bay and is the residence of the magistrate and other Europeans. Landing on the beach is not good, and the anchorage is unsafe during westerly gales, when a high breaking sea rolls in. The coast northward of Red Bluff, which is the northern points of Waitangi Bay, is a sandy beach for three miles. It is there broken by another bluff, after which the beach, continues until, the coast turns to the ' ..westward. After this the shore is broken and rocky. The distance from the north-west point of the Chatham group to Cape Palliser is#37o miles.

At 6.45 p.m. the Gertie berthed at the wool wharf, and landed four of the Himitangi’s passengers, Messrs Foster, Elgar, Cannon, and Kognault. , Then the' brief signal was supplemented, and the anxious waiters were told that the stranding had not been sensational nor httended with any fatalities.