Air Force Harvard Directs Launch To Rescue Of Another

Wanganui Chronicle, 6 January 1949, Page 4

Air Force Harvard Directs Launch To Rescue Of Another

WELLINGTON, Last Night (PA).— When the launch Gale set out from Paremata on a lishing trip at 8 a.m. on Tuesday and had not arrived back that night, relatives of the crew applied to the police for assistance. The police invoked the aid of the Search and Rescue Unit o.” Air Traffic Control and a Harvard plane from the R.N.Z.A.F. station at Ohakea reported at about 11.45 a.m. today that it had found th e missing launch about 15 miles west of the sojthern tip of Kapiti Island, drifting abeam to the waves.

In the meantime, the launch Ocean Spray, with Constable R. J. Ruane, of Paekakariki, on beard, had set out from Paremate to search around Kapiti Island. The Harvard, after sighting the Gale directed the Ocean Spray to the rescue, and she subsequently took the Gale in tow.

The Gale, whicji is owned by Mr. Alan Austin, had four other men on board Mr. Bert Ranson, Seaview Road, Paremata; Mr. Fat Austin, a son of the owner, Bay View Road, Paremata; Mr. Joe Cooper and Mr. Michael Cooper, brothers, of Hobard Street, Miramar.

The Gale has an overall length of 28ft. and is not equipped with a sail. On Tuesday there was a keen offshore easterly wind, which whipped the sea up at. times. With nightfall the wind dropped considerably.

From th e position in which the launch was sighted from the air it is considered th it it must have been without the aid of its engine for some time to drift nearly 20 miles to sea.

Sh e "’as towed into Paremata har» bour at 5.30 tonight.