ACCIDENT ON BOARD MR. MILLAR'S YACHT

ACCIDENT ON BOARD MR. MILLAR'S YACHT.

A GALLANT RESCUE.

Mr. C. G. Millar has thus graphically described to a representative of this journal the plucky rescue of a man who fell overboard from his yacht last Tuesday night on the voyage from Bunbury to Fremantle:- The Saide left Bunbury for Fremantle at seven o'clock on Tuesday evening, the weather being somewhat fresh. The gale of the previous few days had raised a confused high cross sea, the wind coming up from the Nor'-West. The yacht went out under steam to gain an offing, and by ten o'clock it was blowing a strong gale, and the sea was running mountains high.

It was found necessary to send out two men on to the jibboom to secure the outer jib, and Satow, a Japanese sailor, who was one of them, was suddenly washed off by a heavy sea. The other man just saved himself from the same experience by jumping up and clinging to the foretopmast stay. Immediately the dreadory 'Man overboard' was raised, Captain McDonald, who was on the bridge, threw a life buoy to Satow, who, I should say, was dressed in a heavy oilskin coat and sea boots He was, however, a good swimmer, and managed to keep himself going till the buoy was thrown to him, and very luckily to catch it.

The engines were immediately stopped, and the captain gave the order for a boat to be manned. It was a terribly wild, dark night, a mountainous sea running, whilst the wind whistled and shrieked through the rigging, but this did not deter the brave hearts who went to the rescue of the poor Japanese, battling some distance off for dear life with the dark and stormy waters. The cheery voice of the chief officer, Mr. J. Ferguson, was to be heard singing out 'Come on, lads, ' a summons obeyed with alacrity, and he and and two seamen jumped into the dinghey, the smallest boat, but the quickest to be lowered in such an emergency. Soon they were cast loose, but before getting clear of the yacht's side the boat was almost shattered. Nothing daunted, the brave fellows pulled away in her to the rescue of a man whose peril was only equalled by their own. They pulled in the direction where every now and then the cries of Satow could be heard borne upon the wind.

The task of finding him, picking him up, and returning took twenty minutes, and these seemed hours to those anxiously waiting on board, for there were now four lives in imminent peril. At last suddenly loomed through the darkness and drift the little cockle shell, sometimes mounted on the towering crest of a dark wave, sometimes buried from sight in the trough the three men pulling for their dear lives. Soon, now, she came alongside, and gladly we heard the sound of Ferguson's manly voice shouting,"Have lines ready," but our hearts sank again when he added, " The boat is sinking ; show a light."

The bowline was quickly over the side, and Satow was the first to be attached to it and hauled aboard. The three rescuers were by this time in the water themselves, two clinging to one line, the third to another, as the boat, battered to pieces, sank to the bottom. But they were brave and strong and stout of heart, and to our joy were soon safely on deck. Satow was all the worse for his long immersion and the terrible strain and anxiety which he had endured, and was taken to an after cabin where it needed much rubbing and brandying to restore him to his to his usual self, and in fact life. The next Morning in the course of conversation over the incident, I asked him if he was very frightened, to which he replied "Oh, yes; me too much oilskin and sea boot, no could swim, think must die." But Satow is a good man and cool, and those who rescued him were brave men and true. I have seen many cool and plucky things done, but none more so than this. Ferguson and Davies, two of the rescuers, are colonials, the third man is a Norwegian.