Wahine disaster remembered 45 years on

There was no need for the band to play on as the Wahine was sinking – the passengers were already singing There’s a Hole in my Bucket.

As it entered Wellington Harbour in a ferocious storm 45 years ago, on the morning of April 10, 1968, the Lyttelton to Wellington ferry’s radar became useless and a massive wave hit the ship. It was pushed side-on towards Barrett Reef.

Thirty minutes later Captain Gordon Robertson, attempting to steer it from trouble, ordered the ship full astern, washing it on to the reef.

The Wahine ground along the jagged rocks, causing extensive damage to its workings. Water started flooding in.

From that moment, an inquiry later found, ‘‘she was a doomed ship’’.

It would be almost seven hours before the ‘‘abandon ship’’ order was given to the 734 passengers and crew, of whom 51 were to lose their lives that day. Two others subsequently died.

With ludicrous gaiety in the brunt of one of the most ferocious storms in Wellington’s history, someone started a ‘‘sing-song’’, survivor Kay McCormick wrote in her diary after the tragedy.

Grimly prophetic tunes such as There’s a Hole in my Bucket and We Shall Not Be Moved, with the line ‘‘we’re on our way to Heaven’’, were ringing out as 14-metre waves tore through the harbour heads. Just after 1.25pm, these words came over the PA system: ‘‘We are abandoning ship. Would all passengers proceed to the starboard side of B Deck. The starboard side is the right-hand side facing the front of the ship.’’ Ms McCormick never heard the announcement, but it was clear what was going on. ‘‘I had seen the sea that morning and just didn’t believe we would stand a chance on a raft in those waves. But [friend and fellow student nurse] Anne said she was staying with the crowd, so I said I would stay with her. ‘‘I remember an old Maori lady standing on the deck, giving up her beautiful rich singing voice to the sound of the wind and rain. A young man climbed onto the rail to jump overboard and swim and was stopped by loud screams. He turned around like he had just been woken up. ‘‘Standing waiting in the corridor, with a tight grip on the rail to stay standing, I remember trying to persuade myself I might be going to die. But it was so impossible – to be happening in the middle of Wellington Harbour, and to be happening to me – that I just could not believe it.’’ From the moment she woke that day, she thought she would die. ‘‘The sea was just so terrible,’’ she said this week. TWO STORMS COLLIDE National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research meteorology principal scientist Mike Revell said the storm, now known as the Wahine Storm, formed when tropical cyclone Gisele arrived from Norfolk Island at the same time as an upper-level trough approached from the west. Neither system in itself was extreme but their combination was. ‘‘Each one sort of fed of the other.’’ The average wind at the airport at 3am was southerly 18kmh; by 6am it was about 110kmh and stayed that way until about midday. Official readings put gusts at the peak of the storm at 200kmh, and less reliable ones at 250kmh. Either way, they were the highest gusts recorded in Wellington. Visibility dropped from 1km to 200m in the hour before 7am as already massive waves peaked in the shallow water at the harbour heads. It was into this chaotic scene of water and waves that Ms McCormick, then 19, jumped with the first mate. She was one of the last off the ferry, and on to a raft getting ‘‘colder and colder’’, until a tug arrived.

‘‘A rope was thrown out. I caught it and we were hauled in. The waves were washing up deck height on the tug and all the men on board were standing around the deck, inside the rail. We were safe.

‘‘‘Darling,’ I heard – and a big laughing bearded man picked me up in his arms and put me down on the tug deck. I waited until Anne was lifted on board too and then we went inside - into such warmth.’’

Elsewhere, passengers were making dry land. Others were plucked from the water by boats. Some were greeted by locals at Seatoun with flasks of tea and blankets.

Each year, survivors still gather on April 10 in Wellington.

‘‘We all say, it’s a day we would never want repeated but we would never want it taken out of our lives,’’ Ms McCormick says.

Bill Spring doesn’t usually make it south from Auckland for the reunion. This year, he will.

With his mate Brian Goldsmith, he was at the top deck and saw the reef coming. ‘‘You could see the rock out the window, you could almost touch it.’’

The ship hit with a ‘‘clunk’’. It stayed there getting ground against the rocks in the pounding waves. If it had not floated off, pushed by a turn in the wind, Mr Spring is clear: ‘‘Nobody would have survived.’’

During the six hours and 39 minutes that followed, crew told passengers they would be docking soon.

Passengers were still making plans for the day – ones that didn’t involve facing death in Wellington Harbour.

Looking for a lifejacket, Mr Spring went to the crew quarters, where a local radio station announced the ship would dock within an hour.

‘‘The crew were going, ‘Boo, what a load of crap.’ They knew the boat was sinking.’’

When the order to abandon was given, the Wahine was listing heavily, meaning none of the lifeboats on the higher, port side could be lowered.

Mr Spring and others clambered towards the stern, hanging on to the handrail. ‘‘You could almost walk along the side of the ship.’’

There was a small patch of calm water in the ship’s lee, a 20m jump away.

Some were breaking legs and arms as they jumped. For others, the poorly designed lifejackets were forced up by the water, snapping their necks.

The fact that Mr Spring forgot to tie his jacket ‘‘probably saved my life’’, he said.

‘‘You saw some terrible sights and heard some terrible things. I heard, jumping in the water, a young girl starting to scream and when she stopped screaming she died.’’

Mr Spring spent three hours in the water, floating across the harbour then out towards the heads. There were bodies all over.

‘‘It’s nightmarish, I thought I was going to die. You couldn’t see anything.’’

He and his mate were plucked to safety near the jagged rocks of Pencarrow by a tug, already packed with 50 people.

A woman who had lost her child was on board. ‘‘She was literally pulling out her own hair.’’

DOCUMENTING DISASTER

Ian Mackley, Evening Post photographer, was at Seatoun beach when lifeboats started being lowered to the water. One photo, now famous, catches the ship listing heavily as packed lifeboats escape in a heavy swell.

As he finished work, Mr Mackley decided to detour past the coast around from Eastbourne. ‘‘Police were lined up along the edge of the harbour [looking for bodies]. It was an horrific sight.’

The ship remained on the reef for four years, a clearly visible reminder from the beach at Seatoun, before scrap cutters removed it.

Weather expert Erick Brenstrum said there were several mistakes that night and morning that led to the disaster.

His belief is backed by master mariners who took part in an official inquiry into the case. They agreed to sign the decision, which cleared Captain Robertson, only if their concerns were noted in an appendix, Mr Brenstrum said.

It was clear as the Wahine left Lyttelton that the storm warning it had received was for a 10 to 20-year event. The ship was not expected to be sailing into the worst of it, but had little margin for error.

Off the Marlborough coast, with the captain asleep, the crew continued on despite having trouble steering in the large waves.

The ship was already near the harbour heads when the captain woke, and it was very late to attempt a successful turn away.

Following normal practice, the ship was cut to half speed, meaning it was travelling at the same speed as the waves, rendering steering useless.

Then, between the ship first being hit by a large wave shortly after 6am and and hitting the reef half an hour later, engine tapes – a ship’s equivalent of a black box – show the captain had it facing back out of the harbour then seemingly attempting to steer it back in.

It seems he turned the ship to face Breaker Bay. It is likely the crew realised they were looking at the lights of the homes on land and thrust the ship into reverse, back on to Barrett Reef.

Ms McCormick still gets nightmares about that day. She recently cancelled a ferry crossing to Picton.

‘‘I couldn’t face travelling at this time of the year.’’

Friday 5 April 2013

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8516445/Wahine-disaster-remembered-45-years-on