YACHTING DISASTER

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4231, 15 January 1940, Page 5

YACHTING DISASTER

FOUR MEN MISSING PARTY RETURNING FROM WHITE ISLAND Advices received from - Tauranga indicate that four- of a party of five men are missing and are believed to have been drowned when the T'aur-anga-owned keeil yacht Ngahuia was wrecked on Matakana Island during a raging storm on Saturday night. The owner of the yacht, Mr Frank G. Giresham, garage and service station proprietor, of Tauranga, struggled ashore, and, although suffering severely from shock, bruises and a fractured rib, made his way across country to Mr Ross Faulkner’s homestead for help. Those missing are:— Mr Leslie M. Mellairs, married, aged 38, recently of Auckland and now local inspector alt Tauranga for the National Insurance Company. Mr Phillip H, Nielson, married, aged 33, borough council employee, of 11th Avenue, Tauranga. Mr Roy Tonkin, single, aged 23, second son of Mr C. Tonkin, builder and contractor, of Grey Street, Tauranga.

Mr John Herbert Willcock, aged 19, only son <rf Mr S. G. Willcock, secretary of the Bay of Plenty Racing Club.

The Ngahuia leflt Tauranga on Friday evening for a cruise to White Island. She set out again, yesterday in good sailing weather for the return to Tauranga, but ran into very heavy seas on the way across.

It was apparently decided to run for shelter at Motiti Island. By this time a gale had developed, and unable to reach Motiti, Mr Gresham attempted to go on to Mt. Maunganui. In the fierce rain storm which accompanied the gale the men could no|t pick up the beacon on the seaward side of the Mount, and the yacht was compelled to go to sea again. v

The Ngahuia went ashore on Matakana Island shortly before 3 a.m.'at a point about two miles north of the Mount. Whether she struck in the surf or farther out is not known, because only fragments of the hull have so far been found and the exaet position of the wreck has not been discovered. From iwhat information has been obtained from, Mr Gresham, however, it is thought that at least P.O yards of boiling surf separated the five men from safety. It was impossible to use the yacht’s dinghy arid the men plunged into the sea clinging to mattresses given to them by The mattresses were found on the Matakana Island beach by search parties, but, although about 16 miles of the shore was combed from daylight to dark, and other men Scoured the coast of the mainland, no other trace has been seen. It was thought possible that some of the men might have reached the shore and been lying exhausted in the scrub, but this hope was not borne out by the search, made by men on foot, in lorries arid on horseback. Wreckage of the yacht was found over an area of a few hundred yards of the island beach at the place off which it is thought the Ngahuia went ashore. The dinghy was also discovered. However, heavy seas were still .tunning- and no signs of the hull could tie detected offshore.