High Seas
pp. 51-52 · Read in the full issue
Four Days Drift on High Seas For Rabaul Woman
From Our Own Correspondent RABAUL, August 18.
TyRS. M. STAUNTON, heroine of ITI. a four-day drift voyage on a small coastal ship, arrived back in Rabaul on another small ship on the afternoon of August 7, remarkably cheerful but very sun burnt. The native who had shared her unscheduled journey was also on board, but far from cheerful.
With Mrs. Staunton and the native on board, a small vessel (Emperor II), owned by Mr. W.
Wills, had broken loose from her moorings at Rabaul late on August 2 and, driven by strong winds, soon drifted out of the harbour. Mrs.
Staunton, who had been asleep on deck, woke to find the boy crying and the ship half-way to Watom Island. The boy was terrified but she was not—she expected to be rescued the next day. For some reason no help came and by August 5, driven by gale-force winds, she and the panic-stricken native and Emperor II were off Djaul Is. (New Ireland). There they were located by a Qantas Sandringham which directed Lady Josephine, skippered by Mr. John Gilmore, and with Mr.
Wills on board, to that area. How ever, during the night more gales blew Emperor II a further 35 miles and the Sandringham had to re locate her on August 6. Mrs.
Staunton and the boy were taken off about 6 p.m. that day; Mr. Wills and a native crew went on board and prepared to take Emperor II to Rabaul under her own power.
Mrs. Staunton, inclined to play down the adventure, admits to “a terrible feeling of helplessness” when, after failing to start the engine and nearly capsizing the boat trying to rig a sail, she re alised there was nothing to do but wait. Yet when her rescuers greeted her with the usual “How are you?” she jauntily replied, Never felt fitter.”
Mr. John Gilmore said they had a pretty rough trip out and, when they first sighted her, Emperor II was rolling badly in a heavy swell.
That, however, according to Mrs.
Staunton, was the first patch of calm weather” they had experi enced since beginning the drift The third night out, when huge seas had poured over the little ship, was the worst, she said. What she described as a “cranky sea” had saved them. When all seemed lost a stray wave would slew the boat around and out of trouble. The boy had been terrified and seasick all the time. She had “eaten like a horse. Asked if she had been frightened she replied that she had been too mad to be frightened—it
seemed she could do anything on the ship except start the engine.
She is the daughter of the late Mrs. Muriel Rouke, of Guntershohe Plantation, who was killed in a road accident in Sydney last year. Mrs.
Staunton was brought up on Gunt ershohe but returned there to live only recently. As a girl in her teens she figured in another sea ad venture when a canoe bringing her and two natives from the planta tion to Rabaul overturned. They swam and floated for 17 hours be fore being picked up.