Pioneer, schooner, Totally wrecked at the entrance to the Mataura River on February 9, 1883. The schooner was bound from Dunedin to Fortrose, and was detained off the river entrance due to head winds. She laid at anchor at some distance from Toetoes Bay, until noon on February 9, when the master attempted to enter the river while a south-west gale was blowing. After stranding on a sand spit, the schooner was carried down on to the rocks, and, the sea being exceedingly rough, it battered her to fragments in less than two hours. The Pioneer was a stoutly-built vessel, otherwise she would have not stood the battering from the sea for so long.The Pioneer, No. 40,271, was a schooner of 23 tons register, built at Matakana, Auckland, in 1859, and her dimensions were; length 56.6ft, beam 13.4ft, depth5.5ft. She was the joint property of Captain McCullum, of Port Chalmers, and Captain Matheson, harbour-master at Toetoes, and was under the command of Captain Henry Lincoln Pratt.
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