Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, AUGUST 24. 1920. THE MARITIME MYSTERY.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 15301, 24 August 1920, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, TUESDAY, AUGUST 24. 1920. THE MARITIME MYSTERY.

Of many strange happenings which j have occurred off the New Zealand coast none is more mystifying than the occnrIv.ence reported from Rototahi station on ''Sunday night. Tliat it should be. possible for a large steamer to have remained m distress all dajr Sunday, m. comparatively close proximity to our coast, land then. to have sunk, as tlie assuinpi tion is, without leaving trace of survivors iov wreckage, seems so highly improb•able; thaff.but for the firm assurance of ' four reliable witnesses it might have been set aside as a mirage or a myth. The statements made by Messrs. Graham/and McCrae are »so positive tnat the is certuii-.y deserving of fur-" tlfer enquiry and it should be the duty of' 'the Marine Department to institutie a closer investigation of the seas eastward of Puatae than has yet been made. There are, it seems to us, two theories wnicn might be built up out of the testimony of the eye-witnesses at Rototahi. One7s' that some disabled vessel such as the Tort Stephen, which was abandoned at sea a long time ago, and "which may have been derelict on tlie ocean for a long period, her decks stripped by the seas of all movables, had gradually drifted m towards the New Zealand coast and lodged on the Ariel, from whence after being seen by the people on ..the heights at Rototahi on Sunday, she- dropped into deep water on, Sunday night. : Against . this theory is the fact that :the people at. tlie . station were aroused by the sound of a steamer's whistles, which suggests that there wa3 someone aboard the derelict*, sending a signal of distress. It is just possible, however, jf the, weather was thick on tho Sunday morning, that the blasts of the whistles came from some other-pass-ing vessel, caught m a bank of fog. This is . improbable because Messrs McOrae and. Mitchell, on hearing the alarm, as ...they took {f to be, went to the hillside and discerned the waterlogged: hull, over which the seas were breaking,- which goes to show that the atmosphere was clear and the visibility good. Tlie second theory *-is that some passing craft — ■ a foreign tramp, not equipped with wireless, m all pnobability — passing along pm* coasts, struck the Ariel Reef daring the gale of Saturday^ night, that her crew took to the boats, which probably foundered m the heavy seas that would be breaking on the reef. If such a mishap took place there is still to be accounted for the blasts of tlie whistles on the Sunday morning, which suggest that someone was then still aboard the vessel — per- ' haps without boats or rafts enabling him or them to get away. The subsequent , silence of "the vessel's syren and -the absence of smoke of steam would ;bo accounted for by the waterlogged condition m which the boat was seen to be m. Captain Norton, of the Mono,wai, reports that the wind on Sunday afternoon, was iS.S.W.," m which case any flotsam fi'oifi the vessel would not have come ashore but been carried out to sea. and the winds are still westerly. It seems to us that the perplexing mystery cannot be solved without a close search of the Ariel Reef and the waters to the eastward of it, and that the -occurrence is of sufficient gravity to warrant a small steamer being sent from Gisborne to make an exhaustive search. Without this is done it may be weeks or months before the sea gives any tidings of the wreck, if, indeed, any at all ever conic to light. It is most unfortunate that Rototahi station ,was : .,urv. able to get communication by telephone on Sunday between 7.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m., and that the information- given m the morning of the hearing of blasts from' a steamer's, syren yas not passed on or , some further enquiry made. If .'thisvhod been done the probability is the Arahura and Morfowai would have beeiv instructed to make a' search of the locality ns they passed on their way to Auckland. If, as is suggested,* »

—reck ha" cccurr*:::! en ths Arisis, -hfl^ ccCaiT-hC'^A.'iff-r.'i'!. en» mcrg .r.-t&rvce- of/th? rrs-i need fcr ~. ikht en C-afci. £rjd : Fcrelar.d- Such ti lir-ht ii reqvritea.-to vrviard mnviners from ihe ."urilr.cn dangers of the- Ariel Kr-ei. which ettend3 r for six miles parallel with the coast outs'de the course usually taken by steamers trading to and from Gisborne. 'The navigation of these waters m thick , # weather is always a source of anxiety to shipmasters, the Gable End being, a turning point in '-the course down lihe coast, and -it needs only a slight miscalculation of distance to bring a vessel* either on to the Monowai rock near • the Foreland or on to the northern end of the Ariel s. The Government has ' announced .its readiness to instal the light, and no time should bo. lost in,7 . the erection of the lighthouse."