SHIPS AND THE SEA

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 126, 23 November 1935, Page 33

SHIPS AND THE SEA

IN THE EARLY DAYS OF STEAM

A MYSTERY OF THE WELLINGTON COAST

(By "Argi

111. The first two articles of this series have dealt with the old sailing days, when a steamer, however small, was considered the last word in comfort and safety. The power that gave a steamer its advantage over a sailing ship, and which took away the possibility, of that slow, helpless drift on to a lee shore which spelt the doom of so many of the old-timers, could not always prevail, however. The first steamers to use the port had to do so with caution. According to today's standards, they were greatly under-powered, and the old tradition of sail died hard in the minds of the coastal shippers. Their feelings were not improved by the swift and mysterious end that overtook the trim little inter-island passenger steamer City of Dunedin. - In the "Evening Post's" shipping column on Saturday, May 20, 1865, appeared the following departures:— City of Dunedin, p.s., 327 tons, Boyd, for Nelson. This little vessel, well known as a passenger and cargo steamer in those days, never again made port, and her fate remains until this day a mystery. WRECKAGE PICKED UP. "Fragments of wreck have been picked up outside the Heads," said "The Post" on May 26, 1865, "and speculation is rife as to the identity of the ill-fated craft; but we forbear

up the engineer and mate, both of whom strongly advised beaching the ship to save life. At 6 p.m. she was swung about, and bore away for White Rock Bay. Less than one and a half hours later, she took the bottom heavily, and before 8 p.m. all hands were ashore.. They were kept pretty busy during the succeeding hom-s taking off all moveable property, for it became apparent that the ship was doomed. As the flood tide made during the night, the wreck broke in two. Whilst at anchor on the Sunday afternoon, she was passed by the steamer Ahuriri, also bound from Napier for Wellington. Captain Flowerday, of the Ahuriri, reported her whereabouts on his arrival, but it was not until Wednesday, April 8, that, definite news of her loss was received in town.