SIGNALS OF DISTRESS.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1922, Page 4

SIGNALS OF DISTRESS.

MYSTERY OF THEIR ORIGIN. FRUITLESS INVESTIGATION. VESSELS ACCOUNTED FOR. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. Nothing definite has been established in connection with the distress signals seen north of Hokianga on Saturday evening. Investigation shows that the signals were certainly seen, people at the Awanui settlement seeing rockets and those at Ahipara seeing lights, which were also seen by an engineer at the Awanui wireless station while motor cycling from Awanui to the station. It is stated the rockets were alternately red and blue. The small steamer Ohinemuri was unable to search to-day owing to the Whangape bar being unworkable, but to-morrow she will leave at. midday, making a zig-zag course to Onehunga, and going forty miles out to sea. The weather is still a hard north-east gale, with practically no rain. The scow Kapua is safe in Herekino harbor, and as regards the scow which left Whangape for Sydney on Friday, she should be 150 miles out at the tirnje the lights were seen. It was thought in the district that the vessel might have been a trawler, but inquiries here show that no Auckland trawlers are on that coast at present. All other vessels in the vicinity have been accounted for. A cattle barge 28 feet long has been washed ashore twenty miles south of Cape Maria, and fifteen miles from where the scow Haere is ashore. It has not been long in the water and could not be connected with the signals.