CASUALTY TO AN AUCKLAND VESSEL.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 101, 9 May 1885, Page 3

CASUALTY TO AN AUCKLAND VESSEL.

Sydney, May 3. The brigantine Nightingale arrived here to-day from Auckland, waterlogged, in charge of five seamen. The vessel was abandoned 32 miles from Sydney, but these five seamen, who were together in one boat, returned to the vessel, and succeeded in bringing her to port. The captain, mate, boatswain, cook, and two passengers were in the other boat, and are missing as yet. The Nightingale is a wooden vessel of 220 tons register. She was built at Baltimore, United States, in 1860, and is there fore over 24 years old. She has principally been employed in the intercolonial trade, and her last voyage was from this port to Sydney, via Mercury Bay. She is owned here by Messrs D. Gouk (shipwright), Sullivan (master of the barge Pukapuka), and Captain Short (master of the Nightingale), who is reported missing. Mr Gouk owns half, and the others have each a quartershare in the vessel. The Nightingale sailed foom this port on March 16th, proceeded to Mercury Bay in ballast, and there loaded 200,000 feet of sawn timber for Sydney. She left Mercury Bay about March 3lBt, bo that her trip thence occupied upwards of a month. The Nightingale is quite uninsured, but her cargo of timber is insured for £500 in a Sydney office. The timber was shipped by Mr D. H. McKenzie, of Auckland, and consigned to Messrs Stone and Co. and others, of Sydney. Cable message states that there were five seamen besides the master, mate, and steward, but only four were shipped before the vessel left this port. Possibly another I seaman waB taken on board at Mercury Bay, and the passengers referred to must also have embarked there, because none booked in Auckland. The men reported as "missing" are Captain George Short, master of the vessel, born at Dartmouth in 1828 ; J. D. Hastings, mate, born at Louth, Ireland, in 1836 ; and C. Hannaford, cook and steward, late of the schooner Waiapu, born at London in 1837. All these are well known in Auckland. Captain Short leaves a wife and family residing in College Road, and Mr Hastings also leaves a wife, who has a boarding-house in the city. The seamen who have arrived at Sydney in safety include Edward Avarillo, A. Barnes, W. Carey, and Thomas Goodwin, A.B.'s.