TRAGIC VOYAGE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19136, 3 October 1936, Page 2

TRAGIC VOYAGE

HUNGER AND THIRST SCHOONER LOSES BEARINGS ISLANDERS’ PLIGHT With her complement of 22 Marshall Islanders verging on collapse trom .starvation. and t hii.-i. and lorl-ured by lbe ravages of si-urvv. a Japanese schooner, which lmd lost her position and had been vainly sailing in the equatorial region for nearly eight .weeks hi search ol land, reached Nauru Island on September 6. Particulars ol the tragic voyage were contained in a letter from Nauru Island received bv an Auckland resident this week. llow the schooner set out from Kuajnlong, an island in the Marshall Group, for the neighbouring island of Mat tho. missed her destination, tried to find another island near bv, bill missed Hud also, and then sailed on day alter day with food and water rapidly .diminishing and her crew desperately setting, a course by their only navigating instrument, a compass, reads more like a barely old venture of discovery than the passage of a modern vessel. Owned by the Nauyo Boveki Kaisha Line and named Hie Regina, the craft, left, Kivnjalong on July 7 with a number of passengers, including three women and four children. She was to have landed! the passengers al Watt ho and returned with a cargo of copra. FOOD AND WATER RATIONED When ii was realised that the island of YVattho had been passed, the mastei, a. Marshall Islander, decided to try and find the island Ujae. No land was seen and the Regina .was headed had: lor Ivwajalong. which was sighted two days later. Bearings re-established, the Regina was then headed for the island of Lae, but Ibis also was missed. H was then agreed t.o proceed on a south-easterly course in the hope of striking "lie of the Northern Marshall Group. Hays merged into weeks, ami still no land appeared. Food and water was rationed, and as the supply became smaller so the rations were reduced. On August 27 all food and water was finished. Inc winds weie light and taunting. Little headway was made and the heat was merciless. Inipaulins and sails were rigged to catch every drop of moisture, hut showers of rain were meagre and scarce. HEROIC! SACRIFICE

, o nt . of the islanders, in order to try and 1 save his two adopted children, refused to oat or drink. His rations probably saved the children’s fives. He died soon after arriving, at Nauru. It, was about sunset nil September 6 that a schooner was seen making her wav toward' the Nauru Island anchorage, A launch .was sent, off and lowed the .Regina to a berth. Two of the men and a woman were immediately landed and admitted to the Government hospital in a- critical condition. Food and water was at once put on boat cl and rationed out. to the craving crew under the supervision of the medical oflicer of the island. Th e schooner’s crew' was. then housed in the quarantine station, where they are now slowly recovering. Those who contracted scurvy had to be treated with special care. Communication has been established with the schooner’s owners and the. Japanese company is going to sCnd ai steamer to Nauru Island to tow the Regina hack to her home port.