LOSS OF THE BARQUE HYDRA.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1254, 6 August 1872, Page 2

LOSS OF THE BARQUE HYDRA.

The American-bnilt barque Hydra, long and favorably known as an intercolonial trader, chiefly in tbe coal trade between Dunedin and Newcastle, N.S. W., has already been reported by telegraph to have come to grief off the West Cape, but fortunately without loss of life. She has thus followed suit with the foundering of the barques Bengal and Indus, engaged in the same trade. Thebrigantine Ottawa, Captain E. J. Tooker, eighteen after teyfag Newcastle, Hydra, of 800 tons burden^ coW\aaelf,~hynYg a signal of distress. OiT hailing the vessel, Captain Tooker found her to be in a very leaky state, having sprung a leak about . seven dayi previously in a gale. The two vessels were then about twenty miles west of the Solanders. The master of the Ottawa staved by the disabled vessel for 36 hours, and then finding the leak to be increasing (it had previously made 21 inches per hour), and the donkey engine breaking down, Captain Best, of the Hydra, determined to quit his vessel. The transfer of the Hydra's crew, seventeen hands all told, was soon effected, and the Ottawa bore away on her course. Falling calm that evening, tbe Hydra was seen the next morning some eight or ten miles distant with the sea washIng her decks, and soon after she foundered. Four days after quitting the Hydra ' the Ottawa made Otago Heads, and on Sunday last transferred the rescued men to the steamer Beautiful Star, which landed them •t Port Cba'mers. The run up the coast was rapid, arriving off Timaru on Monday afternoon. The Hydra's cargo was consigfttad to her owner, Mr G. S.|Brodrick, of Dunedin, and, owing to the scarcity of coal in tbe market •at present, will prove a great loss. The vessel is insured in the N«w Zealand Insurance Company for L 100 0; and the cargo and freight for LI2OO. Her owner purchased her for L 2500.