STRANDED SCOW HAS EXTRAORDINARY ESCAPE

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 513, 16 November 1928, Page 1

STRANDED SCOW HAS EXTRAORDINARY ESCAPE

ashore near whangarei carried off by wind and sea To run aground on a sandy shore, and then float off again without assistance, and practically undamaged, was the extraordinary experience of the J. J. Craig auxiliary scow Alma. During a hard southerly blow on Tuesday evening last the Alma grounded on the sandy shore midway between Whangarei Heads and Ruakaka. The owners immediately dispatched the s.s. Mahurangi (Captain Hakannsion) and the motor launch. Lady Eva (Captain J. Carey), from Auckland to the rescue. After landing Captain Kasper at Marsden Point, the vessels were espied from the Alma just after daybreak. To get a line to the labouring vessel was their immediate concern, but no surf boat could hope to live in the sea that was running. Two attempts to float a line or lifebuoy from the Lady Eva failed. Captain Kasper succeeeded in boarding the Alma, but when it was seen that there was no possible chance of getting a line through the surf, all hope of getting the vessel off was abandoned for the time being. * But just then the extraordinary happened. The mainsail had been partly hoisted to keep the stern up on the beach. A receding sea carried the bow down the beach a little. The next one lifted the Alma bodily and she slid down a little more. The staysail was up in a twinkling. The winch was started in several turns, and before long the foresail fluttered in the wind. In a matter of seconds the engine was steaming full ahead. With a crippled rudder and the engines spitting back at the big seas, the Alma plunged into the roaring breaker© and, enveloped in foam from stem to stern, ploughed her way to deep water. With little damage beyond a bent j rudder pin and a few pieces of sheeting j corn off. the Alma proceeded to Urqu- j hart's Bay under her own power, and . after examination arrived in Auckland j the same evening in tow of the Mahurangi. She went on slip at Freeman’s j Bay. and by next Monday she will pro- ; bably be ready for sea again.