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 One

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Chapter One

The Wahine was just a little behind schedule when her twin bronze propellers pushed her clear of the Lyttelton Inter-Island Terminal at 8.43 pm on 9 April 1968. The six-carriage boat-train that had rumbled north all day from Invercargill 380 miles to the south, was 10 minutes late when it arrived on the wharf with over a hundred passengers. And when the big, hinged steel stern door rolled down, sealing off the vehicle deck, an 8-minute power failure ashore delayed the lifting of the linkspan unit from the ferry's stern to the wharf.

A moderate 15-knot south-west breeze was blowing as the Wahine rounded the port's eastern mole and made for the open sea down the gut of Lyttelton Harbour, a wide fingerlike inlet cutting deeply into the coastline of Banks Peninsula. Captain Hector Gordon Robertson, aged fifty-seven, tall and greying, the senior master on the inter-island service, stood at the windows on the darkened bridge. Chief Officer Rodney Luly was close by. He had come up just before sailing after supervising loading operations on the vehicle deck. Third mate Grahame Noblet, officer of the watch, was there too.

In the background, a tall craggy Irish priest listened to the Master's quiet commands to the helmsman. Father James McGlynn, sixty-nine, had also been on the bridge the night before, when the ship had left Wellington. He and Captain Robertson were friends and both lived in Lower Hutt, near Wellington. Father McGlynn, who had been in New Zealand and Australia for forty years, was head of the Columban Fathers. He had been in Christchurch, eight miles from Lyttelton, for the day, visiting priests and nuns of his order, and had come back to the ship to find a man occupying the cabin which was rightfully his. A steward had given him another berth before the priest went to the bridge.

The sky was overcast as the ship slipped down the harbour at 15 1/2 knots, the dim outline of hills sliding past. The usual crowd of passengers watched the ship's progress, some from the enclosed part of the C-deck promenade, others from the open, breezy decks. For some, the night crossing to Wellington was a new experience.

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It was routine to many; a convenient way of getting to the North Island, and cheaper than flying. The bar service and cafeteria on B-deck, and the television there and in the A-deck general lounge, were to many passengers of more consequence than the ship's progress. The amenities of the public rooms were of no consequence at all to some. An early night or simply getting to bed before they had a chance to feel sick were more important.

The bar was busy. Peter Madarasz ordered a Coke for his wife Sue, and a double gin and tonic for himself. Peter, twenty-five, a land agent, had married Sue in Wellington on 30 March, just two weeks after his bride's twenty-first birthday. The young couple had crossed Cook Strait to Picton in the Government-owned rail-road ferry Aranui and had been honeymooning in the South Island. They had not planned to be on the Wahine on 9 April but had advanced their booking a couple of nights. They had heard bad weather was expected and they were anxious to get home anyway.

Forty-two-year-old lawyer Bernard Knowles had a quiet drink before he went to his cabin. He had flown to Christchurch late on the morning of 9 April to attend a company meeting. He was due to return to Wellington by air at 7 pm but had been told by National Airways Corporation that flights from Christchurch might be delayed. Knowles had an appointment in Wellington at 9 am the next day so he thought he had better play it safe and return on the ferry. The pyjamas and toilet gear he always carried when he went to Christchurch in case his return was delayed were in his briefcase when he got to the ship just before sailing. He had no difficulty buying a ticket on the wharf. The ferry had room for another 300 passengers. The passenger-capacity of 924 was under-booked; only 610, including forty-one children under the age of fourteen were sailing that night. The crew totalled 125. Mrs Phyllis Robertson, fifty, was aboard after a holiday with two sisters in Oamaru because she wanted to be home with her family in Wellington for Easter.

An inter-university Easter sports tournament at Massey University near Palmerston North was why John Wauchop, nineteen, and the rest of the Lincoln College cricket team were travelling. Teams from Otago and Canterbury universities were also on board.

Roger Wilson, a thirty-five-year-old textile sales manager, had completed a South Island sales trip and was on his way home to page 15Auckland. His wife Bobbie, expecting her first child, was eagerly awaiting her husband's return: she hadn't seen him for five weeks.

Air hostess Sally Shrimpton, twenty-three, on transfer to Wellington from Christchurch, was on the ship because ear trouble had put a temporary halt to flying.

Lynn Kingsbury, twenty-nine, and his wife Gillian were beginning a ten-day holiday after a year's hard work on their 729-acre farm on the coast south of Christchurch, near Rakaia.

Albert Hansen, fifty-seven, and his wife Ilene, forty-five, were on their way home to Wanganui after a wedding at Ashburton.

White-haired Miss Margaret Millar, fifty-four, of Knapdale, near Gore, had left her sheep-farmer brother to look after himself for a few days while she went to the North Island with Christchurch friends Lawrie and Sylvia Nathan.

Mrs Phyllis Robertson watched television for a few minutes after the ship sailed, then had a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea. Shortly after 9 pm she went out on deck but the gentle motion of the ship was enough to make her feel squeamish. She remained on deck briefly, then went below to her cabin, already wishing she hadn't had the cheese sandwich.

While Mrs Robertson was having supper Clarrie O'Neill and his wife Lydia were getting themselves and their six children to bed in the forward section of D-deck. Stephen, twelve, Mark, eleven, and Clarence, seven, were with their father in one cabin. Mrs O'Neill had the three younger children, Karen, five, Ruth, four, and Daniel, three, with her in the cabin opposite. Mr O'Neill, forty, a Seventh Day Adventist, was transferring from Invercargill to the church's Sydney publishing department. They were on their way to Wellington to join the Shaw Savill liner Southern Cross, due to sail for Australia on 11 April. They had tried to get on the Maori from Lyttelton on 10 April to avoid a stopover in Wellington, but as they and others had discovered, the Maori's Wednesday sailing was fully booked up for pre-Easter travel.

Mrs O'Neill, thirty-five and expecting another child, was uneasy about the voyage to Sydney: "I wasn't worried about the ferry; it was the big trip to Sydney that was on my mind," she recalled later. "I told my friends to pray for us. I had my faith in God and thought He would take care of us, but I just felt something was going to happen. When we got on the boat I could not settle. I kept gathering the children together." When she had tucked her children page 16in Mrs O'Neill got into bed. But she left the light on and began praying.

At 9.05 pm the ferry reached Godley Head, northern entrance to Lyttelton Harbour, and swung to port to begin the run up the coast. The helmsman steadied her on a course of 015°. The wind was still from the south-west, freshening slightly. The ship was rolling only enough to trouble passengers with weak stomachs. Captain Robertson was told the lashings on the cars, trucks, and trailers on the vehicle deck had been checked and were OK. Seventy-one passenger vehicles were aboard, forty-eight of them in the upper garage reached by ramps from the main vehicle deck. The cars were in gear, handbrakes on, and held by rope lashings to tie-points set flush in the deck.

The cars were the usual assortment. Sales manager Wilson had his firm's year-old white Holden station wagon aboard. It was parked on the forward port side of the main vehicle deck alongside a new Chev Impala and Euclid truck. The near-new red Jaguar that Sail)' Shrimpton was taking north for a friend was on too, with Sally's 21-inch television set on the back seat. Albert Hansen had his 1961 Vauxhall aboard. Wire lashings and rubber chocks secured twenty-six "sea freighters", wheeled bases with cargo containers atop, holding mail, luggage, malt, flour, and general cargo. Similarly secured were four trailers, the container on one loaded with precisely 301,320 eggs, and other vehicles including the Euclid and an articulated truck carrying two containers open at the top and piled high with 19 tons of coke. A 25-ton refrigerated truck was held to the deck by chains. It was a routine load, only this night there was no livestock aboard as was often the case.

Captain Robertson usually left the bridge about 9.15 pm after his ship cleared the heads, but this evening he stayed about ten minutes longer, chatting with Father McGlynn. Then the two men went down one deck to the Captain's cabin where they were joined by a seventy-seven-year-old Australian, Mr Alfred Rutland. Captain Robertson had been told he was aboard and had invited him to supper. Mr Rutland and the captain had plenty to talk about: Mr Rutland had travelled the world on ships, but the Wahine's voyage was to be his last.

Captain Robertson had been at sea for forty-one years, all butpage 17eleven of them with the Union Company. For sixteen years he had been a master, with a background of captaincy of a dozen cargo ships followed by the Cook Strait ferry Aramoana for three years, and the inter-island ferries Hinemoa and Maori before taking command of the Wahine on 31 October 1966. One of the ships he had served in as a deck officer before gaining command was the first Wahine, 4436 tons and built for the inter-island run just before the First World War. She was lost on a reef in the Arafura Sea, north of Australia, in 1951, when carrying New Zealand troops to Korea. All aboard were taken off safely by a tanker.

The smokeroom aft on B-deck was crowded. Roger Wilson was drinking Scotch with a Wellington friend, John Perham, whom he had met on the ship. They talked about near misses they had each experienced in aircraft.

Student John Wauchop was playing cards with fellow cricketers.

Sue Smith, a twenty-one-year-old nurse, from Newcastle, New South Wales, was also playing cards with other Australians. She was among nineteen Australians on a Trans Tours (NZ) Ltd trip around New Zealand. The party had been in the South Island nine days and was going north for a few more in the North Island. Sue was sharing a cabin on C-deck with sixty-two-year-old Sydney-widow, Mrs Elsie Grey. Other Trans Tours Australians were clustered in nearby cabins.

Also in the smokeroom were the Hansens, watching television. They'd been early arrivals at the ship, driving their car aboard about 5.30 pm. After leaving overnight luggage in their cabin they had gone across the road from the wharf entrance to the British Hotel, and over a few beers played tunes on a jukebox. One of them was the pop song There Goes my Everything. It was an omen. . . .

Father McGlynn and Mr Rutland left Captain Robertson's cabin at 10.15 pm. When they had gone, the Master returned to the bridge. Chief Officer Luly, about to go off duty, had completed his nightly inspection of the ship and reported everything quiet. There were no problems: the ship was snug. The captain went below about 10.45 pm. He was in bed a quarter of an hour later and asleep immediately.

It had been a routine day for Captain Robertson. After taking page 18the ship into her berth at 7 am he had breakfasted and later, after she had been eased from her berth, he watched the crew at lifeboat drill lowering the ship's eight boats which then circled the ship. At 10 am, when the ship had tied up again, he went ashore to the company's office in Norwich Quay. He was back aboard by 11.30 am. Late in the afternoon he went for the customary four-mile walk he enjoyed on the three days a week the Wahine was at Lyttelton. After the evening meal with his officers he had relaxed for half an hour with the Christcliurch Star before changing into uniform. The nightwatchman would wake Captain Robertson with coffee at about 5 am the next morning, and he would be on the bridge again before 6 am.

As the ship ran north her sole radio officer, Robert Lyver, fifty-two, listened intently to the morse messages on the powerful Marconi Oceanspan receiver in the radio room at the rear of the bridge chartroom. At 10.26 pm a Japanese ship, the Masa Maru, flashed an SOS. She was in trouble with a shifting deck cargo of logs in heavy seas near Cuvier Island south-east of Great Barrier Island and listing 15 degrees. Other ships in the area called Auckland Radio. The tanker Maurea, anchored fifteen miles from the Masa Maru, was the closest and she got under way to give help.

Lyver had gone on duty at 7 pm. After testing his equipment he had begun to listen to traffic and log calls on 500 kilocycles, the New Zealand area distress and calling frequency. At 7.25 pm he had copied the coastal weather reports, giving statements of conditions at various locations, transmitted by ZLW, the New Zealand Post Office's central area radio station located on Tinakori Hill overlooking Wellington Harbour. Lyver transcribed the morse code on to his typewriter and delivered the message to Captain Robertson. He had done the same at 8.30 pm when the scheduled six-hourly general forecast for shipping was sent by ZLW on 417 kilocycles. This was the last detailed weather information received by the Wahine.

Because the meteorological service was expecting a bad blow the forecast was preceded by the phrase "storm warning". It stated a severe tropical depression with central pressure of below 975 millibars was centred about 60 miles east of North Cape at 6 pm. moving south-south-east at 20 knots. The forecast added, "position and movement fair". It warned of winds of over 60 knots within 100 miles of the centre, 50 knots within 150 miles, and 35 knots page 19within 300 miles. The prediction for the central area, including Wellington and Cook Strait, forecast strong northerlies changing after midnight to southerlies which would gradually increase to gale (up to 40 knots) or storm (55 knots) force from Wednesday morning. Rain and poor visibility were also to be expected.

This tropical depression or cyclone was already battering the northern part of the North Island. Storm warnings had been going out since Saturday 6 April, a day after the cyclone developed from a disturbance in the Coral Sea close to the Solomon Islands, 2,000 miles north-west of New Zealand. The storm moved inexorably on towards New Zealand and on the morning of the 9th a belt of heavy rain accompanying the cyclone drenched Northland, and gale north-easterlies from the clockwise-moving cyclone lashed the coastline. Swollen streams burst their banks and landslides blocked highways. At the Marsden Point refinery near Whangarei the Master of the 32,000-ton tanker Vola held his ship at her moorings, delaying departure for the Persian Gulf until the storm passed From 2 pm the advancing storm began to spray heavy rain on Auckland.