Yacht Miranda Has To Put Back Because Of Bad Winds And Seas

Wanganui Chronicle, 7 January 1949, Page 6

Yacht Miranda Has To Put Back Because Of Bad Winds And Seas

CHRISTCHURCH, Last Night (PA> —Running into stiff north-easterly-winds and heavy seas, the auxiliary ketch Miranda put back into Port Levy al 7 o’clock this evening after a run of 25 miles out to sea. The Miranda left Port Lew at 8.45 am. for Sydney to compete in the Tasman yacht race. She first left Lyttelton at 11.15 a.m. on Wednesday, but met the same conditions as prevailed today, and put into Port Levy. ‘‘We decided it was only common sense to put back today. Conditions were good, with only a light northwesterly wind when we left, but when the wind freshened we were only making about one knot rigid into the teeth of it,” said the skipper of the Miranda (Mr. Frank Dumergue), in a telephone interview this evening.

‘‘We are leaving again aS soon as conditions are favourable. Anything but a north-easter will do, even a north-wester. We think it will only be a matter of hours, as the barometer is falling. We were disappointed, but thought it was only logical to turn back. At the speed w e were making into the north-easter when it freshened we would have taken lour or live days to reach Cook Strait, and it was only using up benzine. One fcnot is very disheartening.”

With favourable conditions the Miranda should make a day’s run of about 130 miles.