Slim pickings in sand hunt | Northland News | Local News in Northland

Conditions were ideal but the rewards meagre for a team of shipwreck sleuths on the Kaipara's west coast.

The sea south of Baylys Beach was virtually flat last Saturday, looking meek after turbulent waves had earlier scooped nearly four metres of sand from a section of Ripiro Beach where buried metal had been detected.

Conditions were ideal for Dargaville maritime historian Noel Hilliam and his team of shipwreck sleuths. They started digging about 10am as the tide was receding, aiming to uncover metal which a magnetometer had located at eight sites.

Mr Hilliam said they were after wreckage from the New Zealand cargo ship Turakina, believed to have been sunk by a German raider about 28km off the coast in 1942 while on its way to war-battered Britain with food and other supplies.

He had previously found a porthole and other relics from the lost ship, which has had wreckage washed up along about 50km of the coastline.

According to Mr Hilliam, the $14,000 magnetometer, owned by Nick Freeman, of Auckland, takes all the guesswork out of locating metal under the shifting sand on Ripiro Beach.

But at this stage it cannot identify the metal it finds. So, although excitement ran high as the hired digger gouged three pits about three metres deep, there was disappointment as scrap iron was uncovered instead of buried treasure.

The first find was a piece of refrigeration pipe, possibly from the Turakina, but of no historical value. It was reburied as the hole was filled so it would pose no problems for the Baylys Beach Bonanza horse races next day.

An iron knee used to brace a ship's deck ribs was in the second hole.

There are several already at the Dargaville Museum so it also went back into its sandy grave.

A rotten oil drum in the third hole suffered the same fate. And by then the tide had turned and it was time for the digger and shipwreck hunters to retreat.

It was all in a day's work to Mr Hilliam. Unfazed by finding nothing that day, he was already looking forward to exploring the other five sites the magnetometer had located at Baylys still to be uncovered when conditions were right.