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

Runs On Rangitoto

Runs On Rangitoto.

It was four years later that the Glenlora had such a narrow escape from coming to grief when entering the port of Auckland. She was in command of Captain Mitchell, and arrived at the entrance to Rangitoto Channel on the night of January 16, 1877. It was a dark night with a light wind from the north-east, and the ship was doing about four knots under full sail.

Eight bells (midnight) had just gone, the watch had been changed, Bean Rock light had been duly reported on the port bow, and the captain was watching the peak of old Rangitoto and waiting until it bore east-by-north before straightening the ship to come up Rangitoto Channel. Suddenly the look-out man cried out "Hard a-starboard! Hard a-starboard! There's something ahead!".

Captain Mitchell sprang to the wheel, but he had scarcely pulled it over when the ship's forefoot grated, then "slithered up" over the rocks, and there the ship hung; hard and fast for'ard and afloat astern.

Awakened by the shock, the passengers soon came running up on deck, but they were at once reassured that there was no danger, and the captain ordered blue lights to be burned and rockets sent up.

Within twenty minutes of the stranding the steamer Lalla Rookh (Captain Somerville), then on her way to Coromandel, was on the scene. The spot where the Glenlora went ashore is a nasty rocky corner, and Captain Somerville naturally did not care about going in too close for fear he might get into trouble himself.