CHANNEL GALE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 July 1929, Page 24

CHANNEL GALE

FAMILY PARTED AT SEA. London, May 17. Parted in perilous circumstances off the dreaded Dodman Point, South Cornwall, a 73-year-old naval pensioner and his son and daughter were safely reunited at Falmouth. The daughter was rescued from the sea at Portscatho by a fisherman. The son rowed ashore at Mevagissey, and the aged father in a motor-boat fought his way into Falmouth Harbour against a south-west gale. Thomas Ferris, a retired chief engineroom artificer, set out for Falmouth from Plymouth in a 25ft motor boat, towing a tiny yacht and a dingy. With him were his son and daughter, Nurse Ferris, of Honiton, Devon. The party was seen by a coastguard on the lookout at Fowey. With nightfall a strong wind sprang up, and it was decided that each of the trio should take a separate boat. The ■ dinghy, in which Nurse Ferris was, sprang a leak. Obeying the instruction of her father, the nurse baled with one hand and used an oar with the other to keep the poa't’s head to the ■wind. The son in the yacht and the father in the motor-boat were unable, because of their own difficulties to give her any assistance. The engine of the motor-boat then broke down, and during the darkness the towropes parted. Nearly on the rocks on several occasions, the three boats kept together for some time, but were separated by a sudden gust. Early in the morning Nurse Ferris, in the dinghy, was seen in an exhausted condition in Gerrans Bay.- A Portscatho fisherman named Dunstone pulled out to her and towed hei’ ashore. The Fowey lifeboat and tugs went out in search of the father, though it was feared that in the gale he and the motorboat had 'been lost. The old man, however, had managed to repair the engine, and he entered Falmouth Harbour unseen by the searchers.