THE WRECKED KARU.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3010, 13 March 1926, Page 3

THE WRECKED KARU.

A party from Mr. . Leonard Keene’s station in the Far North has visited the wreck of the steamer Karu (writes the Dominion’s Auckland correspondent). “With an easterly blowing,” writes Mr. Hector Macquarrie to the “New Zealand Herald,” “Twilight Bay was quiet. A yacht’s dinghy might have come ashore where, three days ago, the water upwards of two hundred yards from the shore was a mass of fierce, invincible surf. We cantered three miles along the firm sand until one of our number said, ‘Look, there’s a lifeboat!’ He paid a compliment to the disconnected mass of white-painted timber littering the shore. Here was a side with ‘s.s. Karu’ newly painted on it, there was the keel with a few planks still attached; scattered about were odd ribs and a few bits of twisted iron. It was only when we dismounted and searched carefully that we discovered the few remaining traces of what had been the end of a tragedy which had reached its climax but a few days earlier. Walking up on to the low sandhi’s lining the beach, and following the footprints, we found a rough shelter of heather and bracken, where the desparately tired men had rested. A small heap of mussels, now opening in the sun, showed that some attempt had been made to drag sustenance from that inhospitable shore. A few yards further along the beach, on a ledge of sand, appeared a roughly-made cross at the head of what had been the resting place of Frank Saunders. He now lies in a quieter spot in Te Hapua cemetery, where he now sleeps, away from the sound of the waters which killed him. Beside this temporary grave was another section of smashed lifeboat with ‘Wellington’ printed on it. “Again mounting our ponies, and leaving the beach, we rode up the side of a steep sandy hill to the cliffs above the rocky coast which ends at Cape Maria Van Dieman. Four hundred yards beyond Twilight Bay we found a small cove almost land locked by angry rocks, and a minute islet. Tucked into this cove was the Karu, with all sail set. Except for a submerged stern and untidy mass of timber on her forward deck, she might have been berthed alongside a rough pier. It is, of course, impossible to imagine a sane master taking such a wild chance, but curiously enough, had the crew remained in their quarters forward nothing could have happened to them. AVe found these quarters on the forward deck perfectly dry, and even below in the forecastle there was less than 2ft. of water. So she lies to-day, badly smashed about her after deck houses, through which the seas were rushing and swirling, but forward of the aftermast she is in perfect condition. All sail remains set. A staysail, a great foresail, and a. mainsail, badly torn—all were drawing well in the steady breeze, but the rather well-cut clipper bows remain still. The holds are tightly packed to the deck with fine, newlysawn timber, and what is left of the deck cargo has been washed into a heap towards the bows.