SQUALL HITS SCOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 497, 29 October 1928, Page 1

SQUALL HITS SCOW

RANGI BLOWN 200 MILES OUT OF COURSE SAILS TORN TO RIBBONS Hit by a sudden squall when she was becalmed off Tokomaru Bay, the scow Rangi was blown 200 miles out to sea and her suit of sails was torn almost to ribbons. The Rangi was in ballast on her way to Tauranga from Gisborne and she ; was lying in a dead calm. There was : no sign of the squall until it struck j her aloft. She heeled over, the sails tearing badly and for two days was ; i driven away from land by a wild south-westerly. The crew had an j j anxious time trying to mend the sails, , i but luckily another wind blew her back j | again and she made Tauranga in ten j | days. Under a much abbreviated mainsail and with l’oreeail and jibs showing signs of mending the Rangi made Auckland at 2.30 this morning with a cargo of sawn timber from Tauranga. The skipper, Captain P. Petersen, who declined to have his photograph taken, pooh-poohed the affair this morning. “It was just an everyday happening,” he said. “It is just the same as if I blew my nose and tore my handkerchief.” Some of the crew admitted, however, that they did not relish the occurrence. The squall hit the scow at 8 a.m. and the next two days were very trying. The Rangi, which belongs to the Leyland O’Brien Timber Co., was one of the vessels sighted by Von Luckner, when he was escaping in a launch. In his book he says that she sailed too fast for him, so he took the other scow the Moa, which also belonged to ' Leyland O’Brien.