WRECK AT MAKOGAI

Hokitika Guardian, 23 January 1930, Page 5

WRECK AT MAKOGAI

GOVERNMENT YACHT LOST

CREW'S FIGHT FOR LIFE

AUCKLAND, Jaii. 21

The Fiji correspondent of the “Star” sends a graphic account of the Wreck of the Government yacht Lady Escott, during a cyclone at Makogai and the rescue of the captain and crew by the yacht Pioneer.

The Lady Escott was blown from her anchorage, a heavy sea flooded the engine room, and the yacht slowly settled down, sinking by the head. Captain Blakelock stepped into a dinghy where his tweilve-year-ol'd sion, the engineer and two sailors already were. Without oars they drifted to a reef on which a huge sea was breaking. As the dinghy bit the reef it capsized and all were thrown out. They had a terrifying experience fighting for their lives through the seething foam. It was an awful ordeal. Torn, bleeding, and bruised, all managed to win through and happily found that the dinghy and a small life raft hau also gone tlirough the surf. The captain and his son got into the waterlogged dinghy and the other three holing on to the raft. All Sunday they lay in the broiling sun without food or fresh water. In the meantime the Pioneer arrived and found both parties not far apart, but each'thought that tlie other party had perished. The captain and two others are in hospital suffering from shock.