Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 3 (July 1, 1933)

The Rock of Her Salvation

The Rock of Her Salvation.

Talking of the great digging days, a stray memory brings up the story of an old-time clipper ship, as told by a sailor and gold-hunter of the roaring Sixties. When the rush to the Otago alluvial fields began, thousands of diggers flocked across the Tasman Sea from the Bendigo and Ballarat fields, and sailing ships and steamers came in through Otago Heads crowded with men. One of the ships was a famous Blackball liner, a three-skysail-yarder, a flyer of the seas. In thick weather at the Heads she struck a rock, but got off apparently undamaged; landed her passengers, and sailed again for Australia, and in due course reached London with a cargo of wool. She did not leak any more than usual—all those wooden clippers leaked a bit—but she steered badly all the voyage to England; would not always answer her helm.

At London the ship was examined in dock. A large lump of rock was found firmly wedged in her bow, below the water-line, and part of the rock protruded; it was this that had caused the erratic steering. It was this rock also that had saved the ship. When she struck the reef at Otago Heads, the section of New Zealand that she broke off was so tightly wedged in her bow-timbers that the old ship decided to take it along with her round the world. Had it dropped out in mid-ocean there might not have been any tale to tell.