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White Wings Vol I. Fifty Years Of Sail In The New Zealand Trade, 1850 TO 1900

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Some of the vessels trading to New Zealand in the early days had singularly bad luck in striking foul weather, while others seemed to bear charmed lives as far as weather was concerned. One of the unfortunate ones was the 685 ton barque Ballarat, which was built by Duthie for Duncan Dunbar in 1852, and made several voyages to Australia (including a run home from Melbourne in 1855 in 69 days) before she was chartered by the Shaw, Savill Company for the New Zealand trade.

On every voyage to New Zealand the ship struck bad weather. In 1867, when bound from London to Auckland under the command of Captain Craighead, she encountered such big seas that the saloon was flooded on two occasions and a lot of damage was done on deck, the vessel being so badly strained that the pumps had to be kept going for the rest of the voyage. In 1871, when under Captain Reynolds (formerly chief officer of the Countess of Kintore) the ship struck cyclonic weather that tried her severely. When away down in the South Indian Ocean, about a third of the way between the Cape and Auckland, mountainous seas broke aboard and played havoc with everything on deck. Passengers and crew had to man the pumps and bail out for several days. In 1869 the Ballarat also struck heavy gales.