THE KIA ORA WRECKED

Patea Mail, Volume XXIX, 18 December 1908, Page 3

THE KIA ORA WRECKED

Off Kawan Island,

Three Men Drowned. I The scow Kia Ora struck a rock off Kuwait on Monday night. Three uvea wem lost. . , The victims were Captain Edwin d Piercy, aged 55, a married man, whose wife lives at Auckland ; his son James Piercy, about 30 years of age; and the cook of the vessel (Thomas Young, son of Archibald Young), shipwright of Auckland. One seaman was saved. The Kia Ora was owned by Macklow Bros., of Auckland. She was bound from Ngunguru to Auckland loaded with logs. " . About midnight on Monday, during the heavy gale that x’aged on the const the Kia Ora wont ashore on a jutting reef on the outer side of Kawau Island. The sole survivor states that she struck at about 12.15 in an intense darkness, and with a heavy sea running. At the time it was impossible to see the bow of the vessel. The captain, thinking himself well clear of Kawau Island, and wishing to keep clear of the Canoe Rock, altered his course two points to starboard. Almost immediately the scow struck a submerged rock and was immediately swept by a huge sea, which smashed her against the rocks, carrying her spars overboard. The cook was swept away by the same wave and was never seen again. The vessel started to break up and the captain and his son, with the survivor, found themselves clinging to a rock which was being swept by occasional seas and a ceaseless spray. The tide was falling and so later they were in less danger of being swept off, but the cold wiud aud spray kept thorn in a state of helplessness end misery- At length, when daylight broke, the survivor said he would not wait there to be drowned by the incoming tide. He struck out for the shore and after 20 minutes swimming he landed ashoro at the foot of a steep cliff fairly exhausted. He looked back after clambering up the cliff a little but could see nothing of the other two either in the water or on the rock?, and it can only be surmised that they followed his example aad tried to swim ashore, pr were washed from their hold by a big wave. They were not seen again. _ The survivor climbed painfully up the cliff on what little precarious holding he could find and eventually reached a cottage, where he was received and welcomed and news sent in to the Kawau Mansion House. The survivor is naturally much exhausted, but was reported well at the time the s.s, Kawau left Kawau Island for Omaha. The vessel is broken into several pieces* one part of the hull beiug upside down, while the forepart is aslant inside the rock she struck, and the deckhouse ashore further along.