YACHTING TRAGEDY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 June 1942, Page 2

YACHTING TRAGEDY

IN SUMNER ESTUARY THREE MEN PROBABLY DROWNED ONE BODY WASHED ASHORE. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day. One man was drowned and two are missing and believed to have been drowned, through a yacht capsizing at the mouth of the estuary at Sumner late last night. The man drowned was Ernest William Dobbie, aged 23, an airman, of 247 Fitzgerald Street, Those missing and believed to be drowned are Percy Benjamin Dobbie, aged 25, a motor mechanic of the same address and L. Collett, a builder, of McFadden’s Road. The only known survivor is H. Collett, of 130 Matson's Road. He reached the home Mrs Thomas Newburgh at Sumner about 11.45 p.m. in a very exhausted condition and said he and his companions had been washed overboard when the tide came in. The yacht was the Pera, which sailed from Lyttelton to Sumner and stranded in the mouth of the estuary. The four men stayed on board, hoping to float the vessel off when the tide came. in. The yacht was completely wrecked, the wheel house and a great amount of debris being washed ashore by 1.30 a.m. today. The body of E. W. Dobbie was washed ashore about midnight.