EIGHT DAYS IN OPEN BOAT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19366, 24 July 1925, Page 8

EIGHT DAYS IN OPEN BOAT

<' \ST.W \YS FROM THE SAMOA. [ ON LONELY- PACIFIC ISLE. ; Eight days in an open boat, on tropic I seas, then ;i hurricane that kept, ths j castaways baling for life. 1 J'hut was the experience ea.p-| | tain ami mate of the. wrecked I schooner Samoa and three of their . native • row. J he Samoa, a schooner belonging fa Burns. Philip s South Sea Company | lipped her bottom out and went down, with .82 tons of copra, off Nassau, a ! lonely island in the Iko ilir, last April. I Ihe castaways were thrown upon the ! meagre resources of the island for loo*!, and for six weeks eked out an existence, until Captain Tschaun and his chief officer. Mr G. J. Gibbons, with three of the native < row. set out, in the .■'hip’s boat for assistance. I iii'y were al first favoured by fine weather, but on approaching the Samoa a Gioup rough, squally weather was met. ami it was necessary in bah' constantly to keep the boat afloat. Meanwhile the castaways sulTored ma nr privations, find they were in a had war wlii'n I polu Island, in the Samoan Group, was sighted. The boat, landed on the north west side of the island, some 25 miles from Apia. A TIMELY A’ISITOR. Two days after the boat had left Nassau the American yacht Goodwill with her owner, Mr Spalding, called al the island on a Pacific cruise, and sent a wireless message to Apia, reporting the wreck. This lead to the Sanioar schooner. Lady Roberts, being sent 1c the seem', and the. latter vessel picked up the Samoa’s passengers and the remainder of the crew, landing them in Apia on the same day that the captain’s boat reached Upolu Island. Captain Tschaun, who reached Sydney by the A.M.S. Sonoma, st tiles that the Samoa struck on a reef at Nassau during a rain-squall. There is no anchorage at the island, and the schooner was standing oft’ and on, waiting for daylight, when she went ashore. A light which was exhibited on the island as a guide 1o the lookout on the schooner failed during the night, and this was the chief cause of the vessel getting into difficulties. The crew only just had Curie tn scramble, clear in one of the boats.