BOAT ACCIDENT AT WAIKOUAITL

Otago Witness, Issue 570, 1 November 1862, Page 3

BOAT ACCIDENT AT WAIKOUAITL

MAN DROWNED,

We have received information of a sad accident at Waikouaiti, by which a sailor belonging to the ketch Challenge lost his life. The particulars ot the accident are as follows :—: —

On the morning of Friday, the 24th inst., Mr Chapman, storeman to Mr Jones, and three sailors belonging to the ketch Challenge, put off in a boat from the Sandspit, Waikouaiti, with the purpose of landing on the beach, near Mount Cornish. Upon nearing the shore a heavy sea broke outside them, and while they were endeavouring to back the boat into smooth water, she came, by some mismanagement, broadside on to the breakers, and was at once capsized. The master of the Challenge, having witnessed the accident from 'the beach, sent a message to the Sandspit for assistance. Police Constable Britton, "who was on duty at that place, at once started for the scene of the accident in a whale-boat, accompanied by four watermen and two other persons. The day was calm, but there was a heavy ground swell, and the waves were breaking with considerable violence on the shore. Hardly had the whale-boat got amongst the surf when she also was capsized, and the crew had the utmost difficulty in saving themselves • indeed, but for the gallantry of one of the party, a man named John Davis and a Maori who came io his assistance, the constable would have been drowned, he being unable to *wim. The names of the others who made up the crew of the whaleboat were W ilham Harper, Thomas Pennioll, William Dale, Alexander Taylor, John Mlntosh, and Duncan M'Naughton. Upon hearing of the accident, Sergeant Percy, of the Waikouaiti Station, accompanied by Mounted-constable Ilarrold, went immediately to the beach, Mid found that one of the two sailors of the" " Challenge" was missing and was supposed to be drowned. They kept watch along the shore until dark, searching for the body, but it was not until the following morning that the body was found by the police among the rocks close to Mount Cornish, where it had been left by the receding tide. The name of the deceased was Jobn Shepherd.