WELLINGTON HARBOUR MISHAPS

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 185, 2 May 1940, Page 8

WELLINGTON HARBOUR MISHAPS

The account published at the beginning of the week of a plucky rescue in Wellington Harbour serves to draw attention to the lack of facilities for assisting small craft in distress. Mishaps involving rowing-boats and open sailing-boats are frequent, especially in strong southerly weather such as prevailed on Sunday last. Yet if othei boats are not in the vicinity it is left to residents on the harbour fringe, and sometimes to passers-by, to find a means of rescue and attempt to perform it. In the case of Sunday’s incident a drowning fatality was averted by the action of a resident who put off in his own launch, which first had to be reached at its mooring. The difficulties were such that after the rescue had been performed the launch-owner could not return, but was obliged to land on the lee side of Somes Island and maroon himself and the rescued man for the night. Ihe improvements which have been carried out on the Petone foreshore, and the steady increase of population between Petone and Eastbourne, are adding to the number of small craft in the vicinity.. The danger represented by the absence of suitable equipment for use in emergencies is one which should be recognized.