THE ISABELLA PRATT RUN DOWN.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 275, 22 February 1881, Page 2

THE ISABELLA PRATT RUN DOWN.

All Hands Saved. (By Telegraph.) Auckland, To-day. The Union Company’s s.s. Albion, which arrived this morning, reports having collided with and sunk the topsail schooner Isabella Pratt, off Port Charles at 4.20 a.m. this morning. All handswere saved. The Isabella Pratt left here, in ballast, yesterday, for Tairua, where she was to have been loaded with timber for Oamaru. She was commanded by Captain Cross. The captain of the Albion says the schooner’s light was not burning. The first that was seen of the schooner on Board the . Albion was about four minutes before she struck, and she was hid from view by the smoke of the steamer blowing over her. The engines were immediately stopped, but the steamer struck the vessel near the fore rigging, cutting her almost through. Some of the rigging caught the steamer’s jibboom, and held the wreck up for a few minutes, which enabled the six men aboard the schoomer to scramble on to the Albion, otherwise they would in all probability have been lost, The Albion’s jibboom was carried away, and the schooner sunk immediately. Captain Cross denies that his lamp was net burning, and says he had just set his watch and gone below to pick out his position on the chart, when he heard the mate cry to the man at the wheel to to keep her away, and call to the steamer to look out where she was coming to. Captain Cross’s private loss is Li 50, and he is totally uninsured. The vessel is believed to be insured for Li,coo in the National.