SEA PERIL

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 265, 5 August 1929, Page 9

SEA PERIL

JVRECKS OF FORMER DAYS

TABLETS IN MEMORY

(By

A.O.H.)

In the quiet little church on the first floor of the Sailors’ Friend Society building in Whitmore Street, where men of the seven seas bend their heads in worship, the walls are covered with brass plates that tell many a tragic tale of stout ships and staunch hearts now no more.

. The missioner (Mr. James Moore) unlocked the iron gate and we passed up the stairs into the church. At one end light came through a great stained-glass window, in which ships and fish, and things of the sea were wrought in many colours. The first brass plate we came to on the wall was in memory of s.s. Elingamite, which was totally wrecked off The Three Kings on November 5, 1902, as a result of which thirty lives were lost.

The crash came during a dense fog. There were 110 passengers on board, and these, with the crew, made haste to put off. Six boats and four rafts were commissioned, and in the hurry one boat, with its human freight, was overturned. The captain stayed on the steamer until washed overboard, but upon being rescued he at once proceeded to rescue others. One boat, with 15 of the crew and 37 passengers, landed safely at Hohoura, an isolated point. A cook was drowned, and a passenger' died from exposure. The remaining boats and the rafts drifted away with about 116 men and women. Those of the boatload that had landed at Hohoura spent a night no less miserable than the others experienced. Some of these latter were cast up on an island. Next day there was no relief, and all that night rain fell. Only wreckage floated where the Elingamite had been. At last another steamer-I—the 1 —the Zealandia—attracted by a beacon fire, arrived and took off the castaways, rescuing 89 people in all. The Zealandia also picked up a number of dead bodies floating at sea, but still there were people missing. Pathetic scenes were witnessed at Auckland, when the Zealandia arrived, relations and friends searching among the rescued for faces not there. Despite all efforts, on a raft with another batch of survivors could not be found. Actually, it was floating out at sea with sixteen men. They had no water and no food beyond an apple, which they divided into sixteen parts. For five days they drifted. When at last they were rescued, half of them only were alive. Chinamen’s Bonos. The next plate on the wall is in memory of s.s. .Ventnor, which foundered near Hokianga, also in 1902—0 n October 28. Soon after midnight on the Sunday a shock shook the vessel from stem to stern, and it was clear she had struck a rock. The engines were reversed, and the ship was able to get off, but the wound was a mortal one. The pumps were brought into use, because one of the holds was filling with water, and until the Tuesday morning the fight continued. It was evident, however, that the vessel was sinking. By evening land was still distant. All hands were ordered to the boats. Hardly had they reached a safe distance when the vessel’s stern rose in the air and she sank bow first. The captain and third mate jumped overboard together, and were presumably drowned, as they were never heard of again. On the Thursday morning two boats were picked up with their exhausted passengers. The third boat was found later —half-full of, water—and those on board had to be lifted out On board the Ventnor were 480 boxes of Chinamen’s bones. In this connection one must remember that when a Chinese dies he hopes his bones may eventually be dispatched to his own ancient land, to rest with the last remains of his forefathers. That his final resting-place should be in a foreign clime is an unbearable thought. The custom is to disinter the bones, clean and wrap them carefully and dispatch them to China. The Ventnor was bound for China with I 480 boxes of bones, all of which went down with the ship. A substantial ■reward was offered for one box in particular, but it was never recovered. A message from Greymouth, published in the Press at the time, said there was great lamentation among the Chinese community of that town, from where 177 of the cases had been forwarded. Some of the bodies had never been buried, while others had reposed in the cemetery for twenty years. The consignment of 480 cases was insured for £4650. Hand-Carved Tributes. One of the most appalling shipping disasters in the history of New Zealand was the loss of s.s. Penguin off Terawhiti, in a great storm on February 12, 1909. On board were 101 persons, and of Vese 67 lost their lives. The place where the ship struck is a spot dreaded by all mariners, wild and bleak and swept by winds from north to south. The disaster occurred at night in weather of the worst description. One boat was wrecked in the launching, and as the vessel plunged downward the remainder of the people jumped overboard. The next day over 50 bodies were washed ashore. The funeral was one of the most impressive ever seen in Wellington.

Mr. Moore, the missioner, standing by the tablet in the church, easily recalled to mind that time of anguish. He personally had helped to identify forty of the bodies on the beach. Among the crew were three of his choir. After the disaster, he said, a Lettish sailor went down and secured a piece of timber from the wreck. He could not speak a word of English, but as an ex-, pression of gratitude for the kindness shown him at the mission he carved that piece of wood into a base for the tablet now on the wall. Other tablets had other tales. One of them recalled the Lizzie Bell—a barque which met its fate on July 24, 1901, at the mouth of the Oeo River. Twelve lives were lost. In the darkness the boats were launched. One boat reached shore safely, but when the other boat was re-

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covered it contained only dead bodies, while other bodies were found among the rocks. It is believed the Lizzie Bell struck the Oeo reef, in the vicinity where the steamers Mania and Marama and the schooner Annie Wilson were lost in years gone by, and where the Ventnor was to follow in the next year. Then there was the scow Moana, found on September 25, 1905. off Mokau Heads, bottom upwards, with only two dead bodies of her crew of eight—an untold story; also, the Ohan, lost off Wellington Heads with 20 lives in May; 1899. There was the Omaka, which turned turtle at Pencarrow Head on January 30, 1921, and in a remarkably short space of time was pounded to pieces on the reef. None of the six men on board survived: some of the bodies were washed up later at the mouth of the Hutt River. After the wreck, an old skipper resident in Wellington, retrieved the name-board of the vessel and took it to the mission, where a sick boy—a shipwright—carved it into a base for the tablet now on the wall of the church. Went Down With Ship. Another tablet records two wrecks in 1907. The first was the foundering of the barque Woolahra at Terawhiti on July 5, 1907. The crew left until only one 1 mau remained, related Mr. Moore. That man went back to the captain and said: “All have gone; only you and I remain. Come now.” The captain replied : “No, I car not come. I have put the whole of myself into my ship, and I am going down with her.” Finding his pleading useless, the sailor attached himself to the line and swung off to the shore, and the captain went down with his ship. The other wreck the tablet records is that of the Ingeborg, near Port Stephens, on August 14, 1907 Still recent in the public memory is the wreck of the s.s. Ripple, which was lost at sea on August 6. 1924. with a crew of nine. Another tragedy involving the loss of men known to former habitues of the mission turns back the page of time thirty years—to June 2, 1899. The Hinemoa had arrived off the East (.ape lighthouse with supplies, but as the weather was rough, no attempt to land was made for three days. Then a surf-boat containing the first mate and three seamen put off. They took a risk as the weather was rough. “Pull away, boys, don’t look at the seas,” called the mate. The men pulled—but the sea won. The boat overturned and the men bad to swim for it. Onlv one of them ever reached the shore. He sat on a submerged rock, and it seemed that he was safe. But there was a menace near him. He emitted a shriek and disappeared—the victim of a shark. These brass plates, and others, gleam on the walls in solemn array, and when hardy men from the seven seas bend thenheads in the quiet little church in n hitmore Street, they do so with a memory for stout ships and staunch hearts that the sea has claimed.