The Nome Nugget

Motorship Hits Rocks In Canada

POWELL RIVER, B. C., (AP) Three small children and two women, one-third of the passengers aboard the 145-foot coastal motorship Gulf Stream, perished in the night Saturday when the converted Canadian yacht smashed onto a rock island and partially sank while threading a narrow passage of the Georgia Strait.

A nearby fishing vessel, the Betty L., rescued the 10 other passengers and 22 crewmen, bringing them to Powell River where 11 were hospitalized. Their condition was reported not serious.

Officials of Gulf Lines, Ltd., operators of the Gulf Stream, listed the five missing persons, who were believed drowned in the vessel's submerged after cabins, as: Mrs. K. Elliot, Vancouver, B. C., her son, Lyle, 2, and a 3-year-old nephew, Douglas Lispett. Mrs. S. Fleck, Refuge Cove, B. C. A small child of Mr. and Mrs. H. Pavid, also of Refuge Cove.

Search for the bodies in the sunken stern has not been started.

Those hospitalized were severely cut and bruised when they jumped from the stricken craft and scrambled over barnacle-covered ledges of the small island.

The Gulf Stream, which had left Powell River en route to Lund, B. C., was nearing the end of her run about 90 miles north of Vancouver when she crashed into the block-long rock.

The impact was so great that one-third of the vessel drove out of the water, tipping it at a 45 degree angle and forcing the aft section under water as it canted on its side.

Captain Craddock of the Gulf Stream said the death toll might have been far greater if most of the passengers had not been discharged earlier at other coastal points. He estimated that about 150 others were aboard when his ship left Vancouver.

"It was all over in 10 seconds," Craddock said.

Some of the passengers escaped drowning when they smashed windows to get out of the midship salon which rapidly filled with water.

The passage in which the Gulf Stream piled up is between the mainland and Savory Island near Lund.