Non-swimmers Afloat 2½ Hours

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31653, 13 April 1968, Page 34

Non-swimmers Afloat 2½ Hours

A middle- aged Christchurch man and his wife, Mr and Mrs R. J. Hampton, neither of whom can swim, spent nearly two hours and a half in the water after the Wahine turned on her side. Both were picked up by a fishing trawler.

Their son, Mr A. J. Hampton, said his parents told him they had stayed together, both hanging on to Mrs Hampton’s purse which she refused to let go. “My father told me that when the ship listed he put on his lifejacket and went upstairs,” he said. “My mother apparently ended up by buttoning her jacket in the water. “Neither can swim and they spent from 1.20 p.m. until about 3.45 p.m. in the water. At one stage two men also in the water wanted to make up a foursome, but they dragged my mother underwater and my father brushed them off.

“My parents managed to stay afloat until picked up by a fishing trawler.” Mr Hampton, sen., who nins an art studio in Christchurch, left with his wife on a sales tour of the North Island, but their car, together with a wide range of samples, went down with the Wahine. He and another man had drifted together for perhaps

two hours after they had jumped from the Wahine before they were picked up by a “little red rubber dinghy” and landed near Eastbourne, said Mr C. M. Kirk, of 324 Ferry Road, who returned home yesterday. Mr Kirk, a member of the Canterbury University cricket team aboard the Wahine, spoke of the confusion, especially among elderly passengers, as the vessel heeled over.

“We moved to the doors and a fellow told me to jump,” said Mr Kirk. “I did, and drifted round behind a lifeboat which moved away from me. I was not too happy at it getting away. “I eventually picked up another fellow and we drifted towards Eastbourne together. We would have been in the water for an hour and a half to two hours, and were about 100 yards off the Eastbourne surf when we were picked up by this little red rubber dinghy.

“I don’t know where it came from. I was pretty far gone by then. There was a man in it, and he was using oars. There were two big waves just before we went on to the rocks about a mile and a half from Eastbourne proper." Mr Kirk praised the way survivors were looked after in Wellington. He said he had obtained a suit “on the Union Company” and had been reunited with the rest of the cricket team. He flew

from Wellington to Blenheim, and, with other survivors, returned to Christchurch by train. Nearly Flew “I could not have imagined such a storm,” said Mr J. A. G. Fulton, of West Eyreton, one of those who survived the dangerous surf on the Eastbourne side of the harbour after drifting an hour or more on a raft. Mr Fulton was going to Wellington for a meeting of the Shipping and Export Council. He had been booked to travel by air but because of the possibility of flights being cancelled made the trip by ferry. One of the “most awful parts” was as the Wahine drifted stern first to and past the Fort Dorset lighthouse. She swung like a pendulum on the for’ard and anchor chains, said Mr Fulton, who was standing aft. As the ship drifted past the lighthouse it swung within a few feet of the concrete base. “We could count the crabs crawling on the base. Several passengers could not stand it and went for'ard or into the lounges.” Mr Fulton, one of the last to leave the aft end of the ship, said he “walked, or rather slithered" across the steeplysloping deck to an inflated raft, which was lowered into the sea. Gentle Rollers “We drifted about an hour and a half on gentle rollers, in what in other circumstances could have been a pleasant trip. We pulled four persons out of the water. I saw dozens of others but we had no chance to pick them up as we had no way of getting close to them. “We had two wooden paddles about two feet long but

they were useless,” said Mr Fulton. Mr Fulton came ashore about two miles south of Eastbourne. Breakers towering 20 to 30 feet crashed over the raft and the whole coastline was a mass of rocks. “We heard the roar from one tremendous wave for fully a minute before it came into sight, straight up the harbour. It turned another raft over, but the crest flattened and our raft rode it, although we were smothered with foam and water.” After that they were drenched by every breaker, but the raft almost surfed until held up by seaweed and the undertow, which kept sucking them back. “Four or five of us leapt overboard to pull the raft further in with each wave,” he said. Under Raft Mr Fulton had some fearful moments when a wave carried the raft forward to pin him beneath. He scrambled free with the next wave, which beached the raft on the only sandy opening that he could see among the rocks. Mr Fulton counted nine bodies along the coast as they walked two miles to a checkpoint near Eastbourne. One of the six or seven women among the 20 or so on the raft walked the distance with a broken toe. Women at the check-point provided hot soup and a man gave them a welcome ration of cigarettes, said Mr Fulton. Two nurses did a wonderful job with the injured, one of the nurses working in teaming rain without a coat. Vehicles took them to the Returned Services Association Hall at Eastbourne where they were in dry clothes within two minutes. The billiards room was converted

to a sick bay. the tables used as beds. When wheatgrowers met members of the Cabinet on Wednesday the general manager of the Wheat Board (Mr L. C. Dunshea) was standing as instructed at an assemblypoint on the Wahine as she drifted down the harbour. “I thought all the passengers behaved splendidly, including the kids and the old people,” he told the Wellington reporter of "The Press.” Mr Dunshea jumped overboard after the boats had got clear. He was picked up before he had been in the water very long, and was “much better off than some.” Mr Dunshea had much praise for some members of the Wahine’s staff, who coped with the difficult, task of supplying passengers with what food was available during the hours of waiting. He was greatly impressed, he said, with the arrangements made by the Wellington authorities. “No Food” Survivors suffered more severely from shock and exposure because nothing was available for them to drink from the time the vessel hit the reef, said a survivor, Mr C J. Benton, a Bell Block farmer, at his home yesterday, the Press Association reports. None of the passengers had had breakfast, and this also contributed to their lack of resistance, he said. “We got off in a liferaft. There were about 100 people in it and on it,” said Robert Gray, aged 16, a deckboy on the Wahine, from Naenae. “They were jumping on the roofs of the liferafts. But the rafts are designed to take this treatment,” said Mr K. Brough, an 18-year-old seaman.

“At first the people wouldn’t get into the rafts. They

stayed on the high side away from the water. The old people particularly didn’t want to jump. “The rafts were blowing up,” said Mr Brough. “The wind was catching them as they inflated, then blowing them out of the water. They punctured when they blew against sharp projections." Wire Failed These crew members said that the tug which had got a 4in diameter steel hawser aboard to tow the Wahipe, had failed because the ship was anchored. “The tug was pulling the hawser from the stern. “On the bow they were trying to haul up the Wahine’s anchors. The strain was too much, and the wire broke.” “It was ghastly,” said Miss Valerie Kentrich, of Wellington. “I was in one of the lifeboats. People were jumping over into the lifeboats, and others were being crushed underneath. “We seemed to wait round a long time before they got the boats over. I don’t know whether they thought it was going to be all right.” Neil Johnson, an eight-year-old schoolboy, of Lintas Crescent, Christchurch, said: “There was this rubber

dinghy and Dad threw me into it. He jumped into the sea and he managed to jump aboard. Boy’s Effort “A boy, one of the passengers, saved our lives. He organised things. He and another passenger paddled. “When we came ashore, it was rough. Most of us got out into the sea. Two ladies wouldn’t come. They got stuck in the liferaft, and Dad went back to help. They came out then.” Another survivor said a baby was thrown to him from the decks, but he could not catch it and it sank like a stone. “Not Clear” Some survivors interviewed were of the opinion that the order to abandon ship was given too late. They said they heard no broadcast announcement. Others said that they were told to go' to the starboard side of the ship which was leaning towards the water. “Many of the older people did not know which side was starboard and they should have told us the ’right’ side,” said a survivor.