THE CAPTURED SCOW.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11415, 19 December 1917, Page 4

THE CAPTURED SCOW.

A GOOD SAILING BOAT. QUITE A GOOD CAPTURE. AUCKLAND, Last Night. It lias bcou reported that the Germans who escaped from. Motuihi on Thursday evening captured the scow Moa, the property of the Leyland O ’Bricn Timber Co., off Mercury' Bay, on the Coromandel Peninsula. The facts, however, are not yet verified, ami it has not been definitely established that the Gormans were the party that boarded the launch. So far as information is available, it, is learned that the crew of another scow saw a launch, not actually identified as the commandeered craft Pearl, hold up the Moa and board her. The latter immediately put about and sailed in a southerly course apparently in the direction of the Alderman Islands.

The scow loft Omakoroa, ton miles from Tauranga, at noon on Saturday last for Auckland. She had a fair wind as far as Capo Colville, and under ordinary circumstances should have arrived in Auckland on Sunday evening or Monday morning at the latest. Captain Bourke, an ox-Royal Navy man, was in charge, with a crew of five. She did not have a big supply of provisions on board, as the regulations do not compel coastal vessels to carry a reserve of provisions. Apparently the crew of the Moa remained on board, and it is presumed the capture was made on Saturday afternoon, as another vessel is reported to have seen a scow, not actually identified as the Moa, but of the same build and rig, at 7 o’clock on Sunday evening, IS miles from Cuvier Light, on Cuvier Island, off the Coromandel Peninsula. The captured scow is 91 feet in length, and a gross tonnage of 127 tons, her net tonnage being 91. The Moa was the biggest scow trading regularly to Auckland with timber from the Tauranga district. At the time of the presumed capture she had a full cargo of timber totalling some 80,000 feet, valued at about £SOO.

The Mon is stated to have been in splendid order, with sails in perfect condition, as she had been completely overhauled only about six months ago. Her speed with a good fair wind would be about ten knots, and she would be quite capable of undertaking a trip to Svdney or any of the islands. Though she has on board a donkey engine for handling cargo, she has no auxiliary power, and this fact should tend to make her capture more easy. It is reported from one source that she has taken the launch on board, and from another that the launch has been

picked up by the scow that first sighted her after she had been captured. It is confidently anticipated by a number of people that if tho Germans did board the Moa there should now be no difficulty in effecting their capture, bui,, as against that, it has to be borne in mind that not very long ago a vessel •/tactically derelict, and whoso general position was supposed to have been known, Drifted about for over forty days before she was finally picked up. The Alderman Islands are a group of basaltic isles with some outlying rocks lika stumps of trees fourteen miles from. Mercury Bay and nine from the nearest mainland, Tairua Head.