ACCIDENT to STEAMER TAKAPUNA.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3954, 22 March 1884, Page 4

ACCIDENT to STEAMER TAKAPUNA.

; [by telegraph.] ' . Wellington, This day. ''" The Evening Post publishes tho follow■ing:—"An explanation is at last forthcoming , of the extensive but unaccountable damage which the s.s. Takapuna, on being docked at Port Chalmers, was found to have received. It appears that one night, somewhere about two months ago, as the steamer ■was coming down from Taranaki to Wellington, and going at full speed past Opuuako, a sudden and severe shock was experienced, strong enough to jerk out of Ids bed on to the cabin floor a second cabin passenger who occupied an upper berth. On his enquiring l as to the cause of this disagreoablo interruption of his nightjs rest,' he was led to believe that the steamer's counter had been struck by v heavy sea, and as tho second-class quarters arc right astern, where any motion of the boat'is most felt, he appears to have accepted this as a feasible explanation. It has leaked out, however, that the concussion was caused by tho vessel striking on an outlying ledge of tho Opunake reef, which she must have passed right over. Sho was well down by the stern, and so her forepart would pass clear over tho reef, and only the after part of her bottom being deep in tho water came in contact with the reef, while the great speed at which sho was travelling took her right'over with a sort of jump, and her double bottom prevented any material leakage subsecjuently. It seems pretty certain that if she had had only a single bottom she probably would havo gone down diroctly after getting over the reef, and that with her doublo bottom had she been going slower sho would have stuck hard and fast ou tho rooks. It is clear she:hart an exceedingly narrow escape, and it is not reassuring to reflect that rsho has been running just as usual since the accident in her seriously .damaged condition without any report being made of the occurrence or any investigation of tho extent of tho injuries sho had received."