RIPPLE AND AO-TEA-ROA

Hokitika Guardian, 21 January 1928, Page 3

RIPPLE AND AO-TEA-ROA

A small steamer, the Ripple, trading out of Wellington, was lost wwth all hands a year or so ago. somewhere off Cape Palliser. Had she been equipped with wireless help could have been summoned in time to save those on hoard. A wireless set would have enabled the "master to broadcast bis position and condition. Tbe Ripple perished, but her going created a backwash of agitation for the compulsory equipment bf all steamers with radio apparatus, and the latest development is that sea officers going up for examination must now obtain a certificate of proficiency in the use of wireless. The parallel between the ease of the Hippie and that of the aeroplane Ao-tea-roa has been made pretty obvious in the last few days. Neither the officers of the sinking coaster nor the plucky aviators in the monoplane were aible to make their position or their condition known. The flying machine’s wireless signal was a totally inadequate makeshift for a proper mes-sage-sending apparatus. The compulsory equipment; pf

flying machines with a satisfactory radio set and the compulsory training of all flying men in aerial navigation will no doubt be an outcome of the Ao-tca-roa episode. The history of pioneering is full of such episodes; the men who blazed the way were often ill-equipped and often failed at the very threshold of achievement. Their lack of prudence was vast, but it is by the lessons of such rash heroic failure that those who follow after win comfortable success.—Tangiwai in Auckland “Star.”