Title: The Wahine Disaster

Author: Max Lambert

Publication details: Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd, 1970

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Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

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The Wahine Disaster

Chapter Six

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Chapter Six

With the ship still in the grip of the reef the passengers followed the shock instructions to don lifejackets and proceed to muster stations.

The announcement that the ship was on the reef confirmed for Mrs Ingrid Munro that the ship was aground and it was not an earthquake. Her brother Warner De Boer and his friend Stuart Corson, two Canterbury University students, came round to her E-deck cabin and Monique was hurriedly stuffed into her slacks and jersey. When she opened the lifejacket locker four empty beer bottles toppled out on to the floor, but the lifejackets were still there and they put them on.

The narrow corridors were crowded with anxious passengers and as they slowly made their way along, Stuart raided a linen cupboard for a thick towel in case Monique was sick. Nearing the smokeroom they were invited into a suite to view the black rocks that loomed up close outside the porthole. Mrs Munro had thought, "this can't be happening to me." But one look at the black mass outside convinced her soon enough.

The Donohoos realised the engines had stopped and were already out of their cabin when the announcement came over the loudspeakers. They returned to their cabin, put on their lifejackets and made their way to the smokeroom. On the way they stood aside to allow a worried-looking mother accompanied by three young children, and an older woman, to pass by.

The mother, a stranger to the Donohoos, was Mrs Shirley Hick who was returning to her home in Shannon, a small North Island town, after taking her eldest son to a deaf school in Christchurch.

With her was Mrs Phyllis Robertson who had spent a miserable night being seasick. When Mrs Robertson woke in the morning she felt a little better but decided not to rush her dressing: "I was going to take my time and not be the first off the ship as I usually am." She was lying quietly when the announcement came. Leaping out of bed she flung on her clothes, which were scattered in disarray from the night before. "Oh my goodness," she thought, "something's wrong." A steward was suddenly in her room, helping page 48her put on the bulky orange lifejacket. Then he went to the cabin across the passage and helped Mrs Hick. Mrs Robertson offered to help as they all squeezed along the corridor, and took the eldest boy David, aged six, by the hand. The steward had three-year-old Alma by the hand and Mrs Hick carried Gordon, who was one year old that day. They finally got to the smokeroom.

Mr Frank Penman and Mr Miles had composed themselves after being flung in a heap when the order came to don lifejackets. Mr Penman's first thought was: "What a bloody way to go!" He noticed there was no water in the toilet or taps and put it down to the water pumps being otherwise committed. The real reason was that the pumps controlling the drinking and sanitary water had been swamped in the motor room soon after the grounding. Before going to the smokeroom he looked out the cabin window and saw sharp rocks off the port bow. He thought: "Add these to cyclonic conditions: answer, situation precarious."

Clarrie O'Neill's first concern when he heard the announcement was to keep his large family together at all costs. "As calmly as possible we got ready; we didn't want to put any more fear into the children's hearts. Stephen found the lifejackets and we put them on. They were big and bulky, and Daniel was hard to see when he had his on. We left our cabins and started to walk down the companionways. I could hear an occasional distressed cry and a stewardess was saying 'Don't panic'. But I could see she was distressed."

As they walked along the lights dimmed and there was a strong smell of diesel oil. A voice over the public address system warned against smoking or lighting matches. To Mr O'Neill this sounded really bad. "We were helpless. We still slowly made our way along and my wife and I were both praying. I tried to comfort others; elderly ladies were distraught and weeping. People were being sick and we couldn't move very fast. The lines of people kept stopping."

The first indication that honeymooners Peter and Susan Madarasz had that something was wrong was when a steward with an American accent poked his head into their cabin and told them to put on their lifejackets. It wasn't until a few minutes later that the loudspeakers told them the ship was on Barrett Reef. They quickly dressed, Susan in a pink twinset, blue slacks and a pair of desert-type boots, and left the cabin for the muster station. It was for the last time. Susan did not even take her handbag. "I page break
The abandoned Wahine on the point of capsizing just off the end of Seatoun Beach. In the left foreground is the jagged bulk of Steeple Rock.

The abandoned Wahine on the point of capsizing just off the end of Seatoun Beach. In the left foreground is the jagged bulk of Steeple Rock.

The rail ferry Aramoana, unable to help, stands off the stern of the Wahine shortly after she capsized.

The rail ferry Aramoana, unable to help, stands off the stern of the Wahine shortly after she capsized.

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The Wahine's number four lifeboat, which was hand-propelled for most of the way, surges on to Seatoun Beach.

The Wahine's number four lifeboat, which was hand-propelled for most of the way, surges on to Seatoun Beach.

Chief officer Rodney Luly is helped ashore from the Worser Bay Surf Club's boat Miss Europa, which plucked him and a Wahine seaman from the water. On Luly's right is local resident Pat Mclntyre who helped crew the surtboat.

Chief officer Rodney Luly is helped ashore from the Worser Bay Surf Club's boat Miss Europa, which plucked him and a Wahine seaman from the water. On Luly's right is local resident Pat Mclntyre who helped crew the surtboat.

page 49thought we'd be coming back." They were both pretty scared as they walked up two decks to their muster station in a C-deck corridor, passing a young couple who looked particularly upset as they tried to put a little baby into an adult lifejacket.

Reaching their muster station, packed with people shoulder to shoulder, they sat on the cold floor of the corridor and listened to the ship banging her life out on the reef. To Peter it seemed to be on and off a couple of times. "Every time it hit or moved there was a frightening crunch."

Mr and Mrs Wood left their cabin with its smashed crockery and made their way through corridors crammed with people. Mrs Wood found it quite frightening: "One felt so shut in." The floor was wet, and a young man carrying a baby slipped and crashed to the floor at their feet, knocking himself unconscious momentarily. "My husband had quite a job to take the baby from him even though he was 'out'. He would not let go the child."

Everywhere in the ship the scenes were much the same: people struggling into the unfamiliar lifejackets, and all afraid of the unknown. But there was remarkably little panic. Occasionally the pent-up fears erupted in a torrent of emotional words or tears, but generally the passengers followed the instructions and went to the muster stations with little fuss.

Albert and Ilene Hansen had left the cafe when the announcement came and were trying to get their lifejackets on in their cabin. Mr Hansen remembers having a hard time opening the cupboard holding the jackets and an even harder time putting his on. "It's pretty hopeless if you have one arm, and my wife couldn't get hers done up properly." As they made their way to their muster station a steward helped them with their lifejackets.

Others who had trouble with the jackets were the elderly, and mothers travelling alone with small children. The jackets were not suitable for young children and were useless for infants.

Mrs Karalyn Brittain was in her C-deck cabin with her fifteen-month daughter Joanne when she heard the instruction to don lifejackets. It was the first indication she had that something was wrong. "My heart went cold. I got out the lifejacket and went over the instructions paragraph by paragraph. When I had it on I found that what with being pregnant and the bulk of the jacket my arms were not long enough to be able to pick up Joanne."

Mrs Brittain, an attractive, brown-haired twenty-three-year-old,page 50was at this stage unaware the ship was on the reef. She was worried, but tried not to show it to avoid frightening Joanne. She called out to a married couple who had a cabin in the same corridor and asked if they could help her carry Joanne. The ship had steadied considerably and with the man carrying Joanne they set off for the smokcroom on the deck above. They were on the landing between the two flights of stairs and about to join the queue lined up to enter the smokeroom when suddenly the ship lurched violently. Mrs Brittain was horrified to see the man holding Joanne sliding across the landing trying desperately to grab hold of something. "For the first time I felt panic and screamed 'Joanne!' Then the ship righted itself and all those on the stairs turned round and looked at me as if to say, 'What is that woman doing?' " She noticed the people looked dazed, as if they were sleepwalking. "There was no talking and the silence was almost eerie. The people were like sheep."

The Air Force girls, Dot Smith and Jan Moles, faced up to the situation calmly, their training in emergencies to the fore. The other girl in their cabin was a bit panicky when she realised the ship was on the reef but Jan and Dot calmed her down. The two Air Force girls dug around in their suitcases for track suits and gym shoes and thought, "If we're going to have to swim we might as well be warm." Dot slung a strand of cultured pearls around her neck and. taking some cigarettes, they left everything else in the cabin.

Air hostess Sally Shrimpton first knew the Wahine was in trouble when she heard someone outside her cabin say "My God, we're on the rocks." Her hands shook a little as she dressed but for all that she took her time to put on pale blue slacks, white skivvy and fawn jersey, and to do her short brown hair and carefully apply makeup.

Roger Wilson was just about to leave his cabin and go topside to look at the weather when the shock announcement came over. "I rushed up to the starboard side of B-deck and saw the reef and the fantastic conditions, the like of which I have never seen before." Another man appeared at his side and said, "Hell, I don't like the look of this." Wilson agreed with him and speculated about the fate of the ship. "If she foundered in such a storm and with the sea conditions the way they were, very few of us would have reached the shore alive." page 51Hanging on to the rail amidships in the face of the violent wind he peered into the murk. He could see the stern of the ship hitting one large rock and the bow was also being driven on to a rock. In between he saw the exposed tops of more rocks. "I felt sick, but mainly from concern. I watched with fascinated horror as a rock below me ground into the side of the ship."

Ashore, Signalman Todd had telephoned through the news of the grounding to Wellington Harbourmaster, Captain Ralph Suckling, at his suburban Khandallah home. Captain Suckling received the call at about 6.43 and heard from Todd there was a heavy, increasing south-south-west gale and that the tug Tapuhi was out on the harbour and had been alerted. The Harbourmaster immediately telephoned his deputy, Captain Bill Galloway, and told him to get to the Harbour Board headquarters at Queen's Wharf as quickly as he could and prepare the pilot launches. Captain Suckling, who first went to sea under sail in 1918, was on the verge of retirement the day the Wahine struck.

The Police first officially heard the Wahine was in trouble a few minutes after 7 o'clock. The three police patrols in the Seatoun area were ordered to keep headquarters posted. The Wharf Police Station on Queen's Wharf confirmed at 7.05 that the Harbourmaster was aware of the situation.

The ship's SOS had started off a chain of official action. At 7.02 Wellington Radio sent out the SOS: "WAHINE AGROUND BARRETT REEF ENTRANCE TO WELLINGTON HARBOUR. SHIPS IN THE VICINITY ABLE TO ASSIST PLEASE ADVISE." The first to acknowledge the SOS was the Union Company freighter Waikare at 7.08. She was off the West Coast of the South Island and making eleven knots to the capital from Melbourne. Listening in to the exchanges on the radio, Lyver, the Wahine's radio officer, had no inkling that he would join the Waikare as "Sparks" later, his job on the Wahine finished.

Following the Wahine's SOS Wellington Radio carried out the usual emergency procedure. The main city exchange was alerted and from there the police, Harbourmaster, Marine Department were notified. Once the ship had sent the SOS Captain Robertson was not obliged to notify anyone else.

On the ferry wharf Rob Brittain waited for his wife and daughter and wondered why the ferry had not arrived. At about page 527.05 he was mystified to see the other cars and tourist buses start to leave the wharf. He asked someone in the terminal what the story was. "Not to worry," he was told, the ferry had been delayed by the gale and would not be in until mid-afternoon. There was nothing for him to do but go to the city building site where he worked as a carpenter.

He was not the only one unaware of the drama taking place just seven miles from the centre of the capital. Power failures caused by the worsening gale prevented early morning radio listeners hearing about the news. First word of the Wahine in trouble was received at 6.45 by girl reporter Carol Gamble in the NZBC's Wellington district newsroom. A Marine Department official rang through with perhaps the greatest news tip in the history of New Zealand journalism. "The Wahine has grounded on a shoal near Barrett Reef," he told her. "Some of our men have just gone out to have a look." Carol checked with the Harbour Board Tolls office and the Wharf Police. Both confirmed the news. The news item was in the hands of the 2ZB commercial station newsreader Paddy O'Donnell a couple of minutes before 7 o'clock. At that stage the station went off the air.

Across the harbour the 6.55 a.m. bus from Eastbourne was already on its way into the city with its usual load of early-start workers, undeterred by the storm. The bus with Mark Powell at the wheel left the bus barns at the southern end of the borough on time. Those aboard were unable to see to the south where the Wahine was still in the grip of the reef. The gale was lashing the coastline and though sunrise was at 6.46, out to sea was just a grey blur of spray. As the bus wound along the road running beside the sea, the waves smashed over the rocks and flooded over the tarseal.

Big logs, washed down by the Hutt River, were swept on to the road and every so often Powell and some willing passengers had to get out and shift them. Even heavy boulders were pushed on the road by the huge seas. It was Powell's toughest trip ever.

When Mark Powell left the Eastbourne bus garage at 6.55 Chief Officer Luly and the Bosun Hampson were still fighting their way across the gale-swept fo'c'sle deck of the Wahine towards the anchors. Leaving the bridge they made their way down a ladder on to A-deck before climbing over the rail on to the captain's deck.

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From there they clawed their way along a safety railing on the roof of the housing before clambering down a steel ladder on to the fo'c'sle head. The short distance from the ladder to the anchor windlass was the most hazardous they had to cross: with nothing to hang on to they went on their hands and knees, the shrieking wind ripping at them.

From the bridge, Captain Robertson watched their progress. He had felt the ship bouncing up and down on the rocks but at that stage she seemed to be stationary. Off the port bow he could catch occasional glimpses of the orange Barrett Buoy light. He worried about the two men on the fo'c'sle head. "I could see the bosun and first officer crawling along the deck on their stomachs. At one stage the wind picked up the bosun and flung him against the rail. If that rail had not been there he would have been blown to Lyall Bay."

The two men finally got to the windlass and prepared to drop the two anchors. First they had to knock off the compressors—two heavy steel bars which drop over the cables and help secure them. Next, the bottle-screws on the devil's claws had to be unscrewed and the claws knocked clear of the cable links which they hooked on to. Then the brakes had to be released to finally drop the anchors. All the time the wind was driving sheets of spray over the ship's bow as the two men struggled to keep their feet. Later, neither man could remember which anchor was released first. The chief officer thought the port one went first and the bosun the starboard one.

Luly intended to stop the anchors at six shackles or 540 feet but as the first was released the ship must have come off the reef and the anchor cable started running out fast. Hampson was on the brake, but the more he screwed it tight the more the linings burnt. "It kept going and going and as it burned blue smoke came out."

The same happened with the second cable until finally the ship came up with an almighty jerk. Both anchors were out to their full extent of about ten shackles, and were riding on their bare ends in the chain locker. The chief officer had the impression the ship was moving astern fairly rapidly until the anchors pulled her up. With the cables fully out all the two men could do was put the compressors and devil's claws back on to take the strain off the points in the chain locker where the cables' ends were secured.

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From the time the two men set out to drop the anchors to when the chief officer reported back to the master on the bridge, about thirty minutes had elapsed. Approximately forty minutes had passed since the ship first hit the reef. Lilly's next job was to supervise the breaking out of the lifesaving gear. Captain Robertson had no intention of abandoning the ship at that stage, as lifeboats and those in them would not have lasted a minute in the terrible conditions. The time was about 7.20 and the gale had increased in intensity with gusts reaching 100 knots. The ship was slowly dragging backwards along the eastern side of the reef with her bow pointing into the weather. By about forty minutes after the grounding the provedore staff reported to Chief Steward Ray Gifford that the passenger accommodation had been checked. They also brought the disturbing news that the lower level of F-deck, deep in the ship, was flooded.

One of the Lincoln College cricketers. John Wauchop, was more surprised than disturbed wheal he discovered there was water on the lower F-deck. He was having a shower when he was "almost wrapped around the taps" during a violent roll and came out to find the way to his cabin barred by a watertight door. He thought it had been closed accidentally until a steward informed him the ship had run aground. Some other members of the team came down and told him the ship had hit some rocks. Then came the announcement, and the students had the problem of what to do about lifejackets. Theirs were still in the cabins sealed off by the door. Up on B-deck they hunted in empty cabins and managed to get enough jackets. During the search John came across an old lady who had fallen and badly cut her hand. "A few of us bandaged it with a spare handkerchief, and I stayed with her until a couple of ladies came and took over."

Ashore, the wind was battering the city and threatening to remove anything not firmly secured, but it wasn't until 7.20 that the country as a whole heard about the Wahine. With power restored, announcer Joy Ring gave the news in a special bulletin on the NZBC national network link: "The inter-island ferry Wahine is reported to have gone aground on Barrett Reef a short time ago. Tugs are on the way to help but the Marine Department believes there is no serious danger."

This was sensational news, but the Marine Department's belief, unfortunately unfounded, that there was no serious danger, helped page 55allay the fears of listeners around the country, particularly those with loved ones aboard.

In the Wellington suburb of Kelburn Mrs Margaret Spidy heard the news and worried for her daughter and son-in-law who were on the ship. The Spidys' elegant home was already rocking and creaking as the wind gusts raged from the south. In view of the news that it was not thought there was an)- serious danger Mrs Spidy remarked to her daughters Christine and Patsy "They're probably better off out there than here."

However, Bob Oliver, a senior diver with the Wellington Harbour Board, did not share the generally felt optimism on the fate of the ship. His first thought when he heard the news was "Oh my God, that's her finished." The thirty-eight-year-old Belfast-born former Royal Navy petty officer had dived near the reef many-times and knew the awful destruction the rocks would inflict on a ship's hull. Leaving his Newlands home he had a hair-raising drive down the Ngauranga Gorge to the harbour, where the gale-wracked scene reinforced his belief that the ferry was a "goner".