WRECK OF THE JESSIE NICOL.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 51, 10 February 1911, Page 5

WRECK OF THE JESSIE NICOL.

CREW MAROONED AT MACQUARIE.

STORY OF THE DISASTER. Invercargill, Feb. 9. Details of the wreck of the Jessie Nicol are necessarily somewhat meagre, but the story so far as it can be gathered is this :— After the “marooning” of the oil seekers last year the Jessie Nicol,, which is the property of Mr. Joseph Hatch, of Invercargill, was sent down for oil which had been left there, some of which she brought back on December Bth last. She again left here for the islands with another party of oil seekers, and to bring back the balance of the stored oil.

To-day the auxiliary . schooner Huanui, from the Campbell Islands, brought to the Bluff the news of her wreck. The manager of the sealing station at the Campbells had communicated to Captain McBride, of the Huanui, that the Nova Scotian sailing ship Ida M. Clark had called in and informed him that when passing the Macquaries she had been signalled for and the captain informed that the Jessie Nicol, while at anchor, had been caught in a north-easterly gale and, her cables parting, driven on to the rocks and wrecked; and that her master, Captain Holmes, the first mate (Patterson), and the cook (Mercer) had been drowned. When thfe accident happened the balance of the crew, and the other men who had been oh, board hatl safely landed, but the captain, the mate and the cook were drowned, the boat in which they tried to make the shore capsizing while those on shore looked on powerless to help. The next day the captain’s body was recovered and buried on the island.

Captain Gilbert, of the Ida M. Clark, offered to take the remainder of the men to Campbell Island, but they refused, saying that they were well and had plenty of provisions. The crew of the Jessie Nicol was •zs follows:— Captain J. G. Holmes (Auckland), aged 45. First mate, John Patterson (Tapanui), 66. Second mate, Alfred Corps (Napier).

A.B.’s.—A. Fifoot (Bluff), Augusta Laudos, a Frenchman, and Pat Gallagher (Invercargill). Cook. —T. Mercer (Barbadoes), aged 60. She also carried ten men engaged under contract to Mr. Hatch to work on the Macquaries till March of next year. Holmes, who was a Londoner by birth, was well known on the New f Zealand coast, having been at different times mate of the. Ganymede and master of the brigantine Sarah and Mary. Patterson had in his younger days followed the sea, but 30 years ago he retired with a mate’s certificate and engaged in farming in the Tapanui district. The old life called to him again, and last August he accepted a position on the Jessie Nicol as mate. Mercer was a coloured man, a native of Barbadoes (West Indies). The long detention of the oil-get-ters last year was due to the vessel being unable to make the islands when she went down for them. She then returned to the Bluff in such a strained condition that the repairs cost Mr. Hatch £4OO. She was a wooden boat of 93 tons net, and was built at Auckland in 1872.

Mr. Hatch acquired her five years ago, and she has been trading for him between the Macquarie Islands and Invercargill. In 1903, it may be remembered, she was in collision with the Rotomahana. She was not insured, as Lloyd’s refused to accept a risk on a purely sailingvessel trading in the Southern Seas.

Mr. Hatch estimates his loss on. the vessel alone at £750. He says he will take prompt steps to bring back the remaining men, chartering either the* Huanui, the Hinemoa, or the Holmdale (of Wellington). The men on the islands, he says, have plenty of stores, and he has no anxiety on that score.

It is believed that one .of the crew is a young man named Corps, who, with an elder brother, was a resident of Napier for some months, and well-known.