HOLIDAY TRAGEDY

Opunake Times, 22 October 1935, Page 4

HOLIDAY TRAGEDY

FLOATED AWAY ON RAFt

WIFE LOST AT SEA

Following the discovery of a rubber bathing raft, it was regretfully concluded that an incident which gave rise to a. 24hour search of the Firth of Clyde had ended in tragedy. The raft was similar to that on which Mrs Smith, wife of Captain W. Smith, of Cults, Aberdeenshire, was swept out to sea while bathing at Innellau, on the coast of Mute. When the raft was found unoccupied after heavy seas had prevailed it was regarded as definite that the missing woman had been drowned. Mrs Smith and her husband wore just finishing a montn s holiday at Innellan. In the evening they went out to bathe together with Mis s Catherine Virquhart, a domestic servant. Mrs Smith and Miss Urqunart floated on the rubber raft, which was carried along on the current. Miss TJrquhart then found that tbe cushion was drifting out to sea, and she slipped off and swam ashore. Mr Smith heard his wife cries, and swam out, to reach her, but found he could not get near. “Despite all my efforts,” he asid, ‘the raft carried by a strong wind, drifted two feet for every one I was able to swim.

“I shouted repeatedly to my wife to jump into the sea. Had she done so I would have been able to save her.

“She was in a panic, and either slie did not hear me or she refused to take the risk.” floats manned by police, fishermen, and holiday makers, some equipped with searchdights, put out to search for Mrs Smith within a few minutes.

The hunt was carried on from Dunoon, Rothesay, Largis, Wemyss Bay, and resorts along both banks of the firth. The boats taking part had to battle through heavy seas. One was nearly swamped. Its occupants Harold Jamieson and William Montgomery, of Innellan, had to row hurriedly to the shore when the boat was struck by a current. The raft was eventually discovered by David Innesand William Robertson, of Paisley, on the shore midway between Largs and Ekelmorlie, on the Ayrshire side of the Firth of Clyde, _ Innellan is on the opposite side of the firth, about five miles from the spot where the raft was found.