ADRIFT IN THE PACIFIC

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 111, 13 May 1939, Page 24

ADRIFT IN THE PACIFIC

SEARCHING FOR THE KINI

It was on Saturday, October 10, 1914, that .a ship's boat containing seven men beached at Blackhead, fifty miles south of Napier, after a hard and exciting sixty-mile voyage. It had come from the Union Steam Ship Company's well-known coastal steamer Kini, of 1122 tons, which was adrift on the Pacific with a broken tailshaft. In the boat were the second mate, third engineer, three seamen, and two firemen of the Kini, and they had been in the boat for 45 hours. The Kini, a '' steel, single-screw steamer, built by Short Brothers, of

Sutherland, in 1894, left Napier for Greymouth to load coal and her tailshaft snapped during a gale when she was about five miles from land, near Blackhead. The accident happened on the night of Tuesday, October 6, 1914, and at the time there was a strong westerly wind and a heavy sea. , The Kini, as empty as a drum, tumbled about in the trough of the sea, quite helpless. It was not unprovidential .. that the wind was then off the land. THE REAL DANGER. ' The steamer was amply provisioned for a drift of three weeks and, as she ' was without wireless, it was impossible for those aboard to tell when she might : be picked up. That was not the dan- ". ger to be feared so much, however, as the slipping of the propeller and ' the fractured tail-end of the shaft out ' of its place, smashing ttie stern post ' and rudder and probably ' damaging ■ - the hull as well. As darkness came on rockets were ■ sent up every ten minutes. The Kini- : was then fast drifting out to sea, the • sport of the waves. All hands were kept at work night and day, from the .'- bridge to the galley. Wider and wider i grew the intervening sea between the - Kini and the mainland, and the ship : was drifting every hour further and . further out of the track of steamers ■ on the coast. A sea anchor was con- , structed and hurled overboard. The . work was arduous, and not by any 's means free from personal risk. A . great boom, fully 12in in diameter, ■ part of the sea anchor, snapped like a carrot under the combined strain of the ship and the sea. And all day Wednesdeay the ship drifted on. Three times the lashings Vound the propeller carried away, and three times this dangerous task of keeping it • and the fractured shaft in place had • to, be accomplished, the ship pitching : and rolling heavily the while. A LONG. PULL. ; On the Thursday the weather mode- : rated and Captain A. H. Stewart, who .; was in command, called for volun- . teers to take a boat ashore with the , news and a request for assistance. -' Every man aboard volunteered to go. . It was a plucky thing to do, for the Kini by this time was 63 .to 65 miles oft the . land, , and although both wind and , sea had gone down and the glass was , high, there was a long way to go, and no knowing what was going to happen to the weather in between whiles. Finally the second officer, with six linen, left the ship at 1 p.m. that day, but they did not land until forty-five i hours afterwards. It was sailing and pulling, but mostly pulling. By 8 p.m. on the Friday the boat was off Blackhead, the men thoroughly exhausted after an exciting battle -- against rough seas. They sheltered off Blackhead all night, on account of the, westerly gale. Afraid of being . blown out to sea, they had a trying ; time to keep close to the beach. At • about 11 p.m. they found themselves 'in a dangerous position amongst the . rocks,' through being unaware of their whereabouts, and it was only by ' strenuous exertion that they managed to get clear. They did not know until the next morning exactly where they • were. "ON LAST LEGS." "When morning came," the second s mate said later, "I had to beach the c boat on account of the westerly wind c again coming up, and we were again t afraid of being blown to sea. I could s do nothing more, as every man was knocked up. None of us was worth r twopence when we got ashore. On top ? of the hard work of rowing continu45asly, none of us had any sleep from the time we left the Kini. We were just on our last legs." At Porangahau the men were cared + for, and after eighteen hours' continu- t ous, sleep recovered from the effects of their long pull. t The news that the Kini was drift- v ing helplessly out to sea naturally rj caused some anxiety for the master dnd fifteen men who were still, aboard. * . When the boat left the Kini, the men t said, she was making to leeward from £ four to five knots. All were well t aboard at the time. _ As soon as the news was received „ in Wellington the Union Company's tug Terawhiti was commissioned to go in search of the disabled steamer and she left at 11 p.m. Early in the morning of Sunday, October 12, the Union Company's collier Kittawa also went c out. The Terawhiti was equipped with stores and coal for a long cruise, v and with rockets and heavy towing £ cable. When the Kittawa left it was t> Stated that "the Kini, having been s adrift for a week, may have been t: driven some hundreds of miles from s. the coast and the search, unless ajs

The m.v. Wellington Star being launched at Belfast on April 20. the ceremony of naming having been carried out by Mrs. William Vestey. The new vessel, which is 555 ft in length over all, has a gross tonnage of 11,400. The Wellington Star is a striking example of the modern Empire "food" ship, and will be a notable addition to the Blue Star Line. She is fully insulated for the carriage of perishable goods.

the accident to the Kini she was steaming out of port and her master managed to locate the Kini in 41.27 south, 177.50 east, eighteen hours later and at night.

sixty miles wide till she reached 180 degrees east longitude. On the Sunday night the Kowhai was spoken 'and the Warrimoo, northward bound, was spoken on the Wednesday. The Tera-| whiti signalled Cape Palliser next! morning and ascertained that the Kini was safe in port. She then returned i Lo Wellington. : OTHER ACCIDENTS. j Accidents to propellers and tailshafts were not uncommon twenty orj thirty years ago. This was the thirai time the Kini had broken her tailshaft. On October 22, 1911, the Kirn broke her shaft when off Cape Farewell during a moderate westerly gale. The vessel was towed to Wellington by the Komata. A similar mishap occurred to the Kini on July 7, 1906, when in ballast, six miles north-west by west of Cape Foul wind. Heavy seas, due to a strong south-wester, caused the engines to race, and the tail-shaft carried away. ANSWER TO CORRESPONDENT. W. P. Anderson.—The steamer Invercargill was engaged in the WellingtonWanganui service until about 1931, when Dalgety and Company sold her. She then ran for a time between Lyt-, telton and Kaikoura as the Kuku. She I served as a trawler out of Lyttelton until about two.years ago, since when she has either been laid up. or scrapped.—"Helmsman." , ,

lucky find is made, will probably be a long one." SOON FOUND. All vessels trading up or down the East Coast were asked to keep a sharp look-out. The Tarawhera, from Napier to Wellington, and the Warrimoo, from I Wellington to Napier, were ordered to make detours from their ordinary courses. ■ In the meantime the Kini was drifting further and further out to sea, and the Kittawa and the Terawhiti were scouring the ocean for her. Eventually the Kittawa found the Kini late on the Sunday night. The Kittawa did excellent work. A few hours after word had been received of

drifted one hundred and five miles off the land. No time was lost in getting lines aboard, but the heavy swell and the darkness made the work both difficult and dangerous. Work went on on both vessels all night. The disabled steamer was taken in tow, and the passage to Wellington began at 6 a.m. on the Monday. BACK TO PORT. The same anight the lashing round the Kini's propeller carried away. There was moire work of; a risky character over the side, and as seven men had gone off in the boat, fewer hands were left aboard to do the work. Captain Stewart of the Kini and Captain J. Baldwin of the Kittawa signalled to : one another as to the urgent business : in hand, but it was not until their two ; vessels were abreast of each other in ', the harbour itself that they had a , chance of verbally exchanging ideas. In the absence of wireless, the Kittawa communicated the news of her i discovery of the Kini by pigeon mes- \ sages. The two vessels made the pas- , sage back to port at the rate of five knots, and arrived at noon on the Wed- . nesday. . Two days later the Terawhiti re- ( turned after cruising a thousand miles \ in search of the collier. 1 Leaving Wellington in a fierce north- ] westerly gale the tug proceeded to the ; I locality, off Blackhead, where the Kini i I had been last reported. The Terawhiti I•< then zig-zagged eastwards along a path (