WAITAKI WRECK

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

WAITAKI WRECK

AND OTHER NOTES

"Your description of the wreck of the Waitaki near Cape Palliser made interesting reading," . writes R.M., of Bulls. "Just to put a complete finale on the scene, would you be good enough to inform your readers whether the authorities exonerated Captain Pennal from blame? To the reader it would be difficult to find fault with his course of action." Referring to the little steamer Snark, the remains of which are at present on Kaiwarra Beach, he says:—"l well remember my late father telling me of his experiences in the Gisborne roadstead. Though a good little craft, the Snark made very heavy weather of it at times, and some of the passengers in the olden days will never forget the thrilling moments during their transfer from the passenger steamer to the j Snark; and for some, the passage from the steamer to the river at Gisborne was all too long. "She was later replaced by the sturdy Tuatea, but with the advent of more modern forms of transit to Gisborne, she in turn has been relegated to the placid waters of the Picton Sounds. WAR DAYS. "I note further that the Balmoral Castle has completed her last voyage between Cape Town and Southampton. Do you know if the Walmer Castle is on the retired list? I was a member of a portion of the 20th Reinforcements which travelled in her from Cape Town to Plymouth in early 1917. I well remember she was a full ship—soo New Zealanders, 800 South African soldiers, 300 English Tommies returning to England from Mesopotamia, and 450 passengers. The Walmer Castle was of some 13,000 tons and a fast ship for those days, but her speed was regulated by that of the slowest vessel in the convoy—in this case the Union Company's good old Waitemata. "Military discipline on our ship as to showing no lights at night was very strict —we were not allowed to light a cigarette on deck —yet the Waitemata in her earnest effort not to retard the other vessels in the convoy too much, made a great sight at night for the flames at times belched forth to a great height from her funnel. In contrast to the Dominion Monarch's recent fast trip we made a slow passage—three months from Wellington to Plymouth, via Sydney, Albany, Cape Town, and Sierra Leone. We travelled in the New Zealand Shipping Company's Opawa to Cape Town, where we transhipped to the Walmer Castle. _ In dodging the submarines we at times were close to America." According to "Shipwrecks, New Zealand Disasters," at an inquiry held into the loss of the Waitaki, the Magistrate said the wreck was attributable to over-confidence in the log and to the ship being run at full speed in thick and foggy weather. The Court considered Captain Pennal blamable for taking no steps to verify his position and. holding him responsible for the loss of the ship, suspended his certificate for three months.,.

Apparently the Walmer Castle mentioned above is "on the retired list" or else she is sailing under another name. The Union-Castle Line have a ship by the name of Walmer Castle, but she was only built in 1936 by Harland and Wolff, Ltd., and is of '906 tons.