TWO MISSING.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19165, 23 November 1927, Page 8

TWO MISSING.

■ ♦ WRECK OF SAILING BOAT. SURVIVOR'S TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE. [TI£E PBESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND. November 22. No trace has been found of William Williams and James Bowman, two of the crew of three on the small sailing boat which capsized in the harbour on Saturday. The third. member of the crew, Stanley Easdown, who spent, two terrible days on Kangitoto island before reaching the quarry where he received attention, is recovering from his ordeal. He will be in bed for a week, and is suffering from exhaustion and worry because he cannot join in the search for his friends. After his three-mile swim to ia-id, following the capsize, Easdown, presumably the sole suryivor of the >rdeal, in a pitiful state of exhaustion, clambered on to the rocky shore of Rangitoto on Saturday night, <\rld with his hands and feet cut and bleeding, staggered to shelter with the hope that Williams, too, had made the shore. He waited round till daybreak and periodically cried out in the night for his companion. With the dawn of another day, however, and no sign of .Williams, "he pushed on round the rugged coast, naked, and calling out the names of his lost friends. From his the only article of clothing that he had retained, he tore the thin lining and improvised a covering for one foot by lashing a piece of drifting »vood to it. In this manner he hopped along in the direction of where he know he would find assistance, and, although the going was agonising and painfully slow, he never gave up hope. When confronted with huge, volcanic boulders, over which he could not clamber in his unprotected state, he took to the water and swam round these obstructions. To add to the agony of the situation, the sun bent down on his exposed body unmercifully, biting into his skin and bringing on an unquenchable thirst. With no fresh waber available, he moistened his parched lips and dried, swollen tongue by sucking loaves ana chewing vegetation. Considering the handicaps he was labouring under, he made good progress, but nightfall found" him still staggering over an interminable stretch of rocks, which, even under ordinary conditions, tear • bs.ots to shreds. Sheltering as best ho could in his nakedness overnight, lie pushed on again at the first .rising of the sun yesterday. Ultimately, ho arrived at the isolated Motu quarry, where Mr Raymond Vail, the caretaker, lives with his wife. Almost delirous with eshauscion, he headed for a deserted bacn nearby, and here drank his fill of water eecui-ed from a tank, and found clothes, which, though thev fitted where they touched, protected his body and assisted him to make further efforts to get help. Almost in a state of collapse,"he pressed on to within a hundred yards of the little home of the Vails, "but; was unable to proceed further. Attention was attracted to his predicament by beating upon some old tin. Mr Vail rushed jut-to Eavlnwn just as he fainted from sheer weakness and exhaustion.