The Joyita vessel has been subject of many articles and books over the years because of its numerous sea incidents. One of those incidents was when the ship ran aground on Horseshoe Reef in the Koro Sea.
On Wednesday January 9, 1957 this newspaper published an article on the Joyita awaiting her fate.
The vessel lay on Horseshoe reef at a crazy angle of 45 degrees with her name defiantly pointing to the sky. According to the article, as she lay in distress her crew straddled the decks while the Kadavulevu made all haste to the scene with salvage equipment. Joyita lay in the lee of the wind, well up on the reef.
The seas at the time were moderate and if she had floated off Horseshoe Reef before Kadavulevu arrived she was bound to sink, but there was a chance that she would be saved if the salvage equipment got aboard on time too. The article reported that the passengers during the incident were in a large life-boat linked by rope to a smaller boat which was in turn linked with Joyita.
Yanawai, the rescue ship floated about a quarter of a mile off and each time the Fiji Times reporter flew over the scene, the passengers some of them gaily dressed women and the crew waved cheerfully to them. The reporter counted four people in the small boat and there were between 10 and 15 in the larger boat.
There seemed to be about five people on the deck of Joyita at the time. And as the reporter and the crew of the Royal New Zealand Air Force Sunderland circled, the smaller boat had cast off her rope from Joyita and began guiding the large boat across the sea to Yanawai.
The sea looked calm, but the little boats seemed to have climbed the waves and then dropped nose first into the troughs, described the article. The boats were alongside Yanawai where willing hands had reached down to pull the passengers to safety.
The reporter reported that they had left the scene when the passengers were picked up.
The crew was still on Joyita, patiently awaiting the arrival of Kadavulevu with the salvage equipment.
They had passed Kadavulevu on the way back nosing her way slowly through a calm sea on her errand of mercy and salvage.
