A TOTAL LOSS?

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 19373, 2 April 1935, Page 2

A TOTAL LOSS?

THE SCOW MOA. Stranded On West Coast. AT MERCY OF SEAS. WARTIME INCIDENT RECALLED. (By Telegraph—Press Association). HOKITIKA, April 2. The auxiliary scow Moa, when entering Big Wanganui River on Saturday, stranded at the mouth of tho river. The unloading of the vessel’s cargo of milling machinery is proceeding. Heavy seas are breaking over tho vessel at high tide, and she is in a precarious position. When thevessell went ashore on Saturday it was hoped that she would be refloated without serious damage, but a strong south-westerly gale sprang up, and the latest advice is that the vessel, which is owned by Winstone, Ltd., of Auckland, will probably be a total loss.

Lying in an exposed position on the north spit, at the entrance to the river, the Moa is exposed to tho full force of the sea. The seas swept her cargo overboard, but most of this has, according to reports, been salvaged. Efforts are still being made to salvage the remainder. A large proportion of the cargo was machinery for the new mil] erected by K.D.V. Boxes, Ltd., on the river. It was loaded at Onehunga, whence the Moa sailed for Greymouth on March 18.

The Moa is a wooden vessel 94£ft. in length, built in Auckland for the timber trade in 1907. She changed hands several times, and lately has been trading on the west coast of the South Island.

(The Moa was seized in December, 1917, off Mercury Island by Lieut.-Commander Count Felix von Luckner, formerly in command of the German raider Seeadler, and the party of nine others who escaped from Motuihi Island, where they were prisoners of Avar, -in the small launch Pearl. They were subsequently recaptured by the cable steamer Iris, noAV the Recorder, at the Kermadee Islands, and Avith the Moa brought Back to Auckland).