WAR-TIME EPISODE

Hokitika Guardian, 8 September 1932, Page 2

WAR-TIME EPISODE

ESiOAPE OF VON LUOKNER.

THE. SCOW MOA.

The scow Moa is at present carrying motor-spirit from Wellington to [South Island) ports. The M[oa was the vessel that Count von Luckner and his ten companions captured! after they had escaped from the prison camp at 'Motuihi on the evening of December 13, 1917. It was not until December 2,1 that von Luckner and his companibns were treoaptiuted at the Kermadec Islar ds, some 600 miles away, by the cable steamer Iris, now the Recorder.. ' .

Count von Luckner, who had commanded the (jerman raider See Adler, and liis comrades,. had been preparing for am escape for some time, 1 if their commissariat was anything to go by, for when they left Motuihi in the launch Pearl they carried with them by way of two turkeys, which) they had prepared in, concentrated form, and the yolks of 400 eggs, which they had prepared by 'breaking into spirit which they had distilled, this mixture being sealed up in tins. In the launch Pearl they made a direct run round ' Cape Colville to the Mercury Islands, wherei after allowing the scow Rangi to, pass, von Luckner decided 1 to seize the Moa, and running his launch alongside her, he and his men threatened the crew of five men and a boy with what appeared to foe bombs, and the crew surrendered. The Moa carried no nautical instruments except a compass, but the German® had in their possession l som© home-made • instruments and a rough chart, and with these they set a course for the Kermadecs, about 600 miles distant, which they reached on December 31. On the same day tbe steamer- Jrjs, which had been sent to search for them, sighted l the Moa, and after a chase of am hour arid a half came up with the scow and von Luckner surrendered. , ■

The Moa is 94ft. in.length with a gross tonnage of 127, and , was the biggest and probably the fastest scow trading out of Auckland. She now has an auxiliary engine, but at the tiine of von Luckner’s escape was without an engine. Captain William Bourke, who was in command of the vessel at the time died about five years ago. The Moa traded between Wellington and Hokitika for some months early in 1930, but then returned to Auckland, where she lias since traded for her present owners, Winstone, Ltd., of Auckland.