FOUR BELIEVED DROWNED

Southland Times, Issue 23741, 13 February 1939, Page 6

FOUR BELIEVED DROWNED

FISHING PARTY IN ESTUARY

THREE MEN AND BOY MISSING DINGHY, NET AND HAT ON BEACH Three men and a boy are believed to have been drowned in the New river estuary' late on Friday night or early on Saturday morning. Their, dinghy was found on the beach on Saturday morning and yesterday afterndon a hat belonging to one of the party was found. It is thought that the party was rowing the dinghy from the beach to a moored launch when the sudden violent storm arose about midnight and that the dinghy was capsized.

The members of the party were:— ■' Thomas Victor Haggerty, aged 38. labourer, of 35 Ayr street, Invercargill, married, with seven children. Hilary Leslie Haggerty, aged 11, son of Thomas Haggerty. James Popenhagen, aged 34, lorry driver, of 19 Islington street, Invercargill, married, with three children. Frank Herbert Rask, aged 27, labourer, of 60 Ayr street, married, with three children.

The party left Invercargill at 10 o’clock on Friday night in the launch, with the dinghy in tow, with the intention of going to Sandy Point to net flounders. A fierce gale sprang up about midnight, and on Saturday the dinghy was found by Mr F. J. Biggs, commodore of the Southland Yacht and Motor-Boat Association, who had gone to look for his own dinghy which he had cut adrift from his launch the previous night when the storm sprang up. With flie dinghy was the net with which it had been proposed to catch flounders. PAIR OF OARS. FOUND Earlier in the day a pair of oars had been found a mile or two down the beach, but no significance was attached to this until it was broadcast that there were fears for the safety of the party and that the dinghy had been found. Inquiries showed that the members of the party had not been seen since they left the city. The launch in which the party left Invercargill was found moored off Sandy Point. Two pairs of gum boots, a pair of boy’s sand shoes and a tin of biscuits were in the cabin, the door of which was locked. The launch itself was in perfect running order. It is thought that the occupants went ashore in the dinghy, and when the storm arose they tried to row back to the launch and failed. Yesterday a big party, consisting of all the available members of the Invercargill police, numbering, about a dozen, under Inspector! T. Gibson and Sergeant J. Coutts, and a party of launchsmen and others, bringing the total to more than 25, conducted an exhaustive search, and about three o’clock in the afternoon a hat which was identified as belonging to Popenhagen, was picked up on the shell bank. The searchers systematically combed, the beaches between Kew and Mokomoko, and dragging operations were carried out from boats. The search, which began at 6 a.m., lasted all day, but except for the hat no sign of the missing men was found. An unavailing search was also made from two aeroplanes. Dragging operations will be continued today. SEA BACKED UP BY WIND ’ The tide was unfavourable _ for a thorough search, as the high wind kept the water in the estuary. It is believed that the bodies are in deep water on the Sandy Point side of the estuary and that there will be little chance of. recovering them until the water is low. Mr Biggs, who discovered the dinghy, was fishing from his own dinghy on Friday night, and when the gale sprang up he rowed to his launch. Just as he boarded the launch a wave lifted it and threw it violently against the dinghy, so for safety he cut the dinghy adrift. It was when he went to the estuary yesterday to look for his own dinghy that he found Haggerty’s dinghy lying upside down on the shell bank near the Clifton railway station. _ Mr Biggs’s dinghy was smashed to pieces in the storm, and parts of it drifted ashore during the day. The New river estuary has the reputation of being one of the most treacherous stretches of tidal water in Southland, and has been the scene of several boating tragedies, the worst of which was the drowning of the Ball family, whose boat was swamped at the mouth about 30 years ago. It is full of dangerous cross currents and tide rips, and these added to the difficulties of the search party.