WARATAH LIFEBUOY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 14, 29 December 1911, Page 5

WARATAH LIFEBUOY.

PROBABLY FROM THE ILL-''

FATED VESSEL

TWO CAPTAINS’ OPINIONS

(Per Press Association)

Auckland, December ‘2B

In regard to the life-buoy bearing the name “Waratah,” fHiich was washed ashore on the west coast near Waiuku, the likelihood of the buoy having any connection with the liinr Waratah, which was lost off the African coast two and a half years ago, was mentioned by a reporter to a number of prominent deep-sea captains this morning. Captain Hart, of the stcamsh p Star of Canada, asked for his opinion, said that lie was inclined to think that the buoy was from the ill-fated vessel. For the last twenty years lie had thrown bottles over at various points in his voyages at the request of the Australian and United States Government meteorological observers. Of course, a number of the bottles were never, heard of again; but he had received a report, on his last trip to England of three that' had been picked up in various parts of the world, after drifting for over three years. Ho remembered throwing bottles over on the African coast and at Cape Horn, and having them reported from the west coast of New Zealand, near the Manukau. It was, no doubt, a long distance for the buoy to drift in such a time, but such tilings had happened before. • Captain Murrison, of the Drayton Grange, said that it was by no means impossible that the buoy was from the lost Waratah, though lie hardly considered it probable. Nevertheless, the barnacles on the buoy pointed to the fact that it had been in the water for a long time. It would be a quickdrift for the buoy to be carried 6000 ov 7000 miles during the time that had elapsed since the loss of the vessel. There are small steamers and a cutter trading on the Australian coast bearing the name Waratah, so that it is possible that the buoy may have been lost by one of these vessels, while it may have come from the scow of that name abandoned near Lord Howe Island last year. The official search for the lost Waratah was abandoned on December 16th, 1909.