THE PRINCE OF WALES.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 212, 6 September 1924, Page 17

THE PRINCE OF WALES.

in bed, -,aM" ; ffie scajio "tliaf-. followedmust havfe licoii"■ f-ulUpfy exciterueht:vXlJ6. Jock was -/spoil" -'with -"excited" men, won'ren; and -childroil, many of■ theht ojily in , their night garments. *■ The cap-tain-apparently stood 'out to sea after the ship struck, as she was not making iuuch water; but as she later begau to leak badly, the master decided to run her ashore. Before this, apparently, though there is much- confusion* in 'the current accounts, a vessel'named the Wanganui, a steamer, passed up the coast, and there was something like.a riot between the Surat's passengers T an<l the Surat'3 master. The passengers, especially the women, were in a fever of excitement, and wished to signal the Wauganui for help. It was stated that there was great. confusion. • The captain admitted afterwards that he had produced a revolver, and threatened to shoot auyone trying to signal- the Wauganui. One account says that the captain hauled down the signals the passengers tried to make to the .Wanganui; that the- chief mate wanted to scuttle the boat, and had to be disarmed by the passengers; and that, otherwise, confusion. prevailed. Kan Her Ashore. Eventually, however, the master of the Surat made for the shores with the intention of .beaching her; and it was after this was ,accomplished that she was found by ' the French warship. Another steamer, the Wallabie, apparently a coastal boat, was the only boat small enough to negotiate the bar. When she got inside she found that the greater part of the. Surat's passengers had been hurriedly/landed, and were being well, cared for at the sawmills of Messrs. Gutlrrie and Larnaeh. and Mr. (>. F.vßrid, as well as in all the available huts and cottages. The Wallabie took a lot of tbe people up to Duncdin. but most of them were accommodated on board the French warship, which, when she arrived in Dunedin, had a most motley assortment of people in all sorts of garments. The unfortunate immigrants had lost all they, had, but the people of Dunedin were very good to them, and treated them most kindly. In his account of the disaster, the master of the' Surat said that when he stood inshore again after bumping, heanchored the ship in a little bay near Catlins River, and landed some of the passengers. Soon afterwards it was found that the ship was sinking, so the cables were slipped, and the ship run ashore at the Catlius River. The remainder of the passengers were then landed, and also the crew. Nothing was saved but a little bedding. The ship had on board a lot of railway iron, and plant for the Kaikoura woollen factory. Vmbijo- the immigrants there were several people who had coma out to work ill the mill. , I At the inquiry into the wreck, the captain stated that he had not been supplied with the proper charts, and the pumps would not work. He admitted that he had been drinking, and that he threatened to shoot anyone who tried to signal the Wauganui. The Court | held "that the captain and his officers were blamable on several points, am! | that their wrongful acts resulted in the | loss of the vessel, the Court's finding as to their certificates being as mentioned above. The figurehead of the Surat, ail admirably-carved head of a woman, was recently "renovated, and placed in the! Otago ".Early Settlers' Museum as a memento of the tragedies of the pioneering days. The Surat made a trip to Auckland in 1804. She sailed from the Downs on June 20. and experienced very poor >T.E. trades, and crossed the Hue on July 25. The S.E. trades also proved indifferent and

i&e Uhmlet: o'tctli^ ? 1 of started, work: at :Gisb"orne:in November j 1889, freezing, 200 "sheep' a -day." It'•• must' be -remcnibercd that, in 'the 'infancy of. this industry, I which- has; grown "to ■ such astonishing "proportions in • the present, day, there werq' : no', shore freezing stations. For instance,- thVDuhedih,' the ship that took the first cargo of frozen meat Home, had-to. freeze;'tiro meat herself. The Prince~ of Wales remained at Gisborne until January, 1891,. when she went to Picton and inaugurated the frozen meat trade sof Marlborough. Eight years later'she returned -to Gisborne and again, acted as storeship until July, 1901, when she went to Port Chalmers, remaining there as storeship until 1900. From there she went to Wellington, where she was eventually sold.for use as a coal hulk.' She was first used as a hulk,by the Blackball Coal Co., and then she passed into - the' hands of the Union Steamship Co., which still owns her, and 'this wonderful old vessel is still in com-. mission, "and likely to last another century," as Mr.'Nelson puts it. • Mr.'Nelson tells mc that during aH the time the Nelsons had her "the bilge pump was never used." She must have been a remarkably tight example of the British shipwrights' handicraft.' Mr. Nelson also recalls the incident that when the storeship was on her way ta. Port Chalmers she created a great scare at Lyttclton. The "Russian scare" was on at the time, and when the Lyttelton people saw this strange craft steaming somewhat clumsily down the coast they ' came to the conclusion that some sort' of Russian filibuster was making a ! descent upon the colony! Her lines must have been rather uncommon. Built in ISoO at Southampton for Money, Wigram and Co. for tho Hudson's Bay trade, she was specially; constructed for encountering the ice- 1 strewn Arctic seas. She was a vessel ol i,)."?() tons gross, or 457 net, built of oak timbers and planking, over which there was it sheathing of greenheart, with zino sheathing outside all, and all her fastenings were of metal. 3lr. Nelson tells tno that the "Prince's" bows for some 15ft were solid oak. with a swell of a foot or more beyond the general line of the hull. It was perhaps not surprising that such a powerfully built craft should have been selected as one of the Franklin, relief expedition fleet of 185 C. Harking back to the arrival of this remarkable ship in Now Zealand, I find from Napier files' that Napier was her first port of. call. She arrived there on October 20, 18S9, 124 days out from London, in command of Captain Cumming. formerly a White Star Line officer. She is described as a barquerigged, old-fashioned looking vessel, so perhaps it is not surprising that she. frightened tho good people of Lyttelton the first time they saw her. The unconscionably long passage the ''Prince" made from London i s accounted for bilbo fact that her power was so low'tlian she could only steam four or five knots lin calm weather, and., of course, when it was a question of sailing Jicr propellers I would only hold her back. I Two other ships hearing the name j Prince of Wales visited New Zealand ThC first arrived at Nelson as early -xs December 22, 1542, hi command of Captain Alexander, and landed ■'OS immigrants, tbe voyage occupvin* 111) ff j ;tr a , yer y d P assa S e f °r*a vessel lof o&2 tons. During this year no less than nineteen ships, nearlv'all immigrants, arrived at "Nelson. Tho second Prince of Wales was a vessel of 924 tons She arrived at Lyttelton on June 24, 1563, under Captain McWilliani, having made the passage in US daW trom the docks. (To be. Continues Next Week.} ■