A SAILING FEAT

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 67, 12 December 1932, Page 8

A SAILING FEAT

Memory of Ship Turakina WRECK OF THE MATAURA Visiting Wellington at present after an absence of some years is Captain D’Arcy Maxwell, whose variecF career ashore'and afloat is very distinctly out of the ordinary. Captain Maxwell commenced his seafaring life as an apprentice in the New Zealand Shipping Company’s service, In the days when stretched canvas and a good breeze were the chief means of propulsion. His first voyage was in the old sailing ship Wairoa, then commanded by a skipper of the old school, Captain Fox, who had gone back to sea after fifteen years ashore, and who had in his day commanded the Red Jacket and Blue Jacket, of renown smart sailers now almost forgotten. After seeing some service, Captain Maxwell saw that sail was doomed, and transferred to one of the company’s vessels, a steamer, which carried a good deal of sail when it was helpful to do so. He recounts two incidents of more than passing interest whilst in that service. He was the officer of the watch on a day when the R.M.S. Ruapehu was running down the easting between Capetown and New Zealand, and was actually passed by the same company’s sailing vessel Turakina, which as she bowled along expressed her contempt for steam by actually crossing the Ruapehu’s bows. At that time the Ruapehu with her steam power and sails, was logging 14} knots so that the Turakina must have been reeling off from 16 to 17 knots an hour to put up such a unique performance. Wreck of the Mataura.

The second unforgettable incident of those days occurred in 1898, when Captain Maxwell was third officer of the steamer Mataura, which left Wellington for London in December, 1897, and in January went ashore and foundered just outside the western entrance to the Straits of Magellan in South America. On that occasion all hands were saved, but not until they had been in the boats for a week and off the inhospitable and dangerous coast of Tierra, del Fuego, where they were picked up by different vessels. When at Simla in 1919 Captain Maxwell had the pleasure of meeting Viscount Jellicoe, then on a voyage of the world in connection with Empire seafaring matters on which occasion he recalled that Viscount Jellicoe remarked that Captain Maxwell and himself were the only two sailors in Simla among a vast concourse of military officers.