The terrible storm had died away but the rain continued to slant down from a grey sky. It was cold—bitterly cold.

On the hillside above the sea a policeman was leading down a man and a woman who had left the water and scrambled up the hill, dazed with shock.

In a clump of scrub a young Maori had just been found, half-frozen and helpless after his ordeal.

A bus-driver had dragged a boy, alone and apparently dead, from a waterlogged liferaft. Desperately the driver worked to revive him on that debris-littered beach, and was at last rewarded by the sigh of returning life.

Rescuers were waist-deep in the surf, battling the treacherous undertow in the effort to drag helpless survivors to safety.

Out in the harbour, the port side of her hull still visible, lay all that was left of a proud new ship. The place: Wellington. The date: 10 April 1968. The ship: Wahine.