POSTED MISSING

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 62, 4 November 1931, Page 5

POSTED MISSING

UNEXPLAINED BISAPPEARANCE OF SHIPS IN COQK STRAIT. MYSTERIES RECALLED. I Once again a ship is overdue in that tempestuous stretch of water known as Oook Strait, writes a correspondent in the Wellington Post apropos of the Kotiki disaster. There are few straits in the world in which mariners meet such a variety of winds and currents as are encountered in this vicinity. Whenever a ship has the misfortune to touch groundl in that region the defence at the resultant Marine Inquiry is always the unusual set in the current on that particular day or night. For years ships have been posted missing in Coolc Strait. One of the first mysterious disappearances was that of the City of Dunedin in 1865. On the 20th May of that year she sailed from Wellington for Hokitika, earrying fifteen passengers, besides her crew. The next rfiport of her was from the Cape Terawhiti sheep station, where Miss McMenamen observed a steamer moving in eircles off the shore. When she returned after reporting the fact to her brothers, the ship had disappeared, and such are the peculiarities of the currents in that vicinity that the only wreckage which was discovered, a hen-coop, came ashore at Palliser Bay. Another ship, which at one time flew the house flag of the Union Company,, the Glenelg, joined the other ships which have made Cook Strait their last resting place, by foundering there in June, 1900. On 22nd April, 1906, the schooner Ronga, which llad left Lyttelton a few days previously under the command of Captain Ned Peterson, was found floating keel uppermost off the coast. No trace was ever found of her crew. The derelict was towed to Wellington and converted into a steamer. Loss of the Kairaki. Although outside the limits of Cook Strait, another steamer, the Kairaki, went missing off the West Coast in the latter part of 1915. No trace of her crew was ever found, nor were any reasonable theories advanced as to her fate, but many months later part of her declchouse was washed ashore, giving the impression that she did not merely founder, but that she must have hit something first. In 1916, another schooner, the Southern Isle, was posted missing. Very heavy weather had been encountered by all ships in the Strait during this period, and it was surmised that she had not been able to weather the gale. However, further light was thrown upon this mystery when, on the 31st May, the lighthouse keeper at Farewell Spit sighted the derelict floating bottom upwards, the schooner having capsized. She earried a crew of five. Another mystery was the disappearance of the steamer Ripple in 1924. She left Wellington in the afternoon of Wednesday, 6th August; at 10 o'clock the same night she was sighted by the lighthouse keeper at Cape Palliser, but as he watched she disappeared, and although portion of her cargo was washed ashore near Castlepoint, the inquiry failed to ascertain the reason for her foundering. Many other ships have foundered in the vicinity of Cook Strait, amongst which are the following: — The schooner Wave of Life in 1883, the schooner Dunedin in 1894, the Hauraki, a small steamer,' in 1887, the ketch Comet in 1895, the schooner Alert in 1897, the Ohau in 1889, and it is believed that the Melbourne was lost in this vicinity in 1875.