A PHANTOM BOAT.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 16, 10 May 1876, Page 2

A PHANTOM BOAT.

Our Pi ebon contemporary publishes the following" extraordinary communication from his own correspondent at Havelock. Some of the good folks thereabouts must have very vivid imaginations, or somebody is playing them a trick. Anyway here is the story :—"Extraordinary Phenomenon. —Some short tinia after last Christmas tv.-o poor follows named Charles Nicholson and James Broadbent were drowned in a gale in Nydia Bay. Since t'.iat time a most curious phenomenon appears over the spot where the boat caf>size I. Sometimes in the morning, and someti nes in the evening, in all weathers, cleir or cloudy, a seeming boat will appear, as though it comes up from the sea, and will skim rapidly along backwards and forwards for a short time, and as suddenly disappear. Being in company with a gentleman from Havelock yesterday evening, we were talking about this (as it is called here) phantom boat. It was a fine clear evening not a sign of a cloud, and Ave were looking towards the place, when my companion suddenly called out, 'There it is;' and sine enough there it was. It came up as suddenly as a flash of lightning, and seemed going along most rapidly right over the spot where the real boat went down. We both watched it for about three or four minutes, and it seemed as though a slight mist was gathering round it ; and, as Ave watched it, it vanished as suddenly ;s it came. It did not seem to go down, neither can I describe exactly how it went; but it was clean gone in one moment. Many others besides ourselves saw it at the same time, from different parts of the bay, and it is seen very often, appearing and disappearing in a most mysterious manner, which has caused it to be called by the inhabitants of the bay ' Charley Nicholson's Phantom rj< >ttb.