BOAT CAPSIZES ON BAR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23894, 23 August 1939, Page 10

BOAT CAPSIZES ON BAR

POLICE INSPECTOR DROWNED (From Oub Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, Aug. 14.

Alexander C. Muir, 59, an inspector in the New South Wales Police Force, was drowned in Brisbane Water, an arm of Broken Bay, about 30 miles north of Sydney, when a 16ft launch in which he was returning from a fishing excursion capsized in heavy surf on a bar. Leaving two companions clinging to the overturned boat, Muir had tried to swim ashoiv. Muir, Leslie Roy Whatley, and A. C. Fowler, all staying at a Woy Woy guest house, had spent most of the day fishing in open water from the launch, owned by Fowler. When they were returning, the boat was swamped by the heavy swell on the bar. It capsized while the men were attempting to bail it out. It was almost an hour before the plight oi the three men was noticed from the shore. Muir, meanwhile, decided to try to swim to the shore for help, using the pine floorboard of the launch as a float. He disappeared.

When the alarm was given, a fisherman rescued Whatley and Fowler in his launch. The two men were on the verge of collapse, but were still clinging to the upturned boat. A man in charge of another launch found Muir 100 yards from the capsized boat. His condition was so bad that he was rushed to a jetty, where ambulance officers and doctors tried for two hours in vain to resuscitate him. A young man, James Mitchell, was fortunate to escape drowning on the previous night on the same bar. He was rowing across the water to spend the week-end with friends when his boat was caught in the tidal rip and capsized. It became dark soon afterwards. Mitchell had been in the water, clinging to his upturned boat, for about an hour and a-half before his cries were heard by Alfred Farrell, who was camped on the bank. Farrell waded out, carrying a hurricane lantern and an electric torch, until he was in water up to his armpits. Mitchel had sufficient strength left to swim to him, but, overcome by cold and the effects of immersion, collapsed soon afterwards. Farrell carried him aslore, but had considerable difficulty in dragging him out of the water. He successfully revived him.