THE MISSING STEAMERS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 9485, 24 July 1902, Page 2

THE MISSING STEAMERS.

NO SIGN OF THE WALSATO.

Eieotric Telegraph -Copyright United Press Association. CAPETOWN, July 23. Ihe tug which left here to look for the steamer Waikato had a week's fruitless search.

Ihe Quiraug is now over a month out from Newcastle to Dunedin, and there is cause for grave anxiety concerning her. Captain Troup, of the Balmain, who served on her at one time, informed us the other day that the Quirang when fully loaded with coal was extremely heavy and dead in the water. She showed very little freeboard, and he feared that if caught in recent bad weather in Tasman Sea with possibly her machinery disarranged she might' have foundered. Captain Forrester, of the- Quirang, is a well known trader out of Sydney, and was formerly in Huddart, Parker "and Company's service. The Quirang was -imported by the old A.S.N. Company for the Queensland trade, and after that company amalgamated with the Queensland Shipping Com--pany she was sold, and employed in island and other trades. She. is an iron screw steamer, with a gross measurement of 1166 tons. She was built in 1882, and is at present owned by a Brisbane syndicate, beiog this voyage under charter to Mr isneddon, of Sydney. Speaking of the probable drift of the Quiraing in the event of a breakdown, a shipmaster engaged in the New Zealand trade has expressed his opinion, assuming that the vessel had become disabled | half-way across the Tasman Sea, that she would ni-akis northward, following somewhere on. the track taken by the Perthshire, and he thinks: she may be heard of either, at, Lord Howe or Norfolk Islands. Should, on the other hand, the Quirajng have met with a mishap off the New Zealand coast, he says she would be carried by the prevailing*' winds and currents towards the land there, and the ■captain, if he got an opportunity, would send a boat off from the ship for. assistance before the vessel gob too dose to,the coast.