FATAL STEAMBOAT COLLISION AT PORT CHALMERS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume I, Issue 22, 15 July 1863, Page 6

FATAL STEAMBOAT COLLISION AT PORT CHALMERS.

Fearful Loss of Life. On Saturday evening, between five and six o'clock, the steamer Pride of the Yarra—a small iron screw-boat—took on board, at Port Chalmers, from forty to fifty passengers for Dunedin, some joining her at the jetty, others alongside the steamer William Miskin, which had just arrived from Invercargill, and one family, consisting of nine souls, from on board the ship Matoaka, which had only the

previous day arrived in the port from London. The majority were on deck, but the IgAies, including Mrs. Campbell, wife of the Rev. Mr. Campbell, Principal of the High School, Dunedin, who was one of the Matoaka's passengers, sought what proved to be the fatal shelter of the cabin, along with her husband and her five children. In the same place was Mrs. Henderson, who had arrived in the colony by the Chili on the occasion of her last passage, and who had only been lately married. Its other occupants were several gentlemen, all of whom have been saved, with the exception of one, who has = been recognised as Mr. Somerville, a station-holder at Wanganui, but his identity is not sufficiently established. The night being an unpleasant one, some of the passengers of the William Miskin and others—five altogether —squatted themselves in the partially occupied hold, the hatches being left off, and it is supposed that there were some who betook themselves to a very minute department in the fore part of the vessel, representing the usual steerage or fore-cabin. In the cabin there was a light, and the party in the hold had also been furnished with a candle; those in the fore-cabin, if any, were in darkness. Thus freighted, the Pride steamed on, going at her usual speed, and she had the reputation of being about the fastest boat in the port. Captain Spence was personally in charge, and at the wheel an experienced steersman, and it so happened that one of the Port Otago pilots was a passenger, though of course not interfering with the guidance of the vessel Vcourse. As she steamed on, parallel to Sawyer's Bay, the lights of the Favorite steamer were recognised, as that vessel was on her way down irom town, and, as the two vessels approached, the Favorite seemed to be steering right down upon the Pride, and occasionally keeping so much of a starboard course that her port lights were concealed. This course being apparently preserved, the Pride's helm was ported, and she was kept well over to the starboard side of the channel, which, at that particular place, is defined by a bluff rocky headland, but there appeared still more necessity for porting the helm, and "Port," Hard a-Port," are alleged to have been the orders. A collision being now almost imminent, there was a cry of" For God's sake reverse the engines," and simultaneously with this they were reversed, but all too late. Both vessels going still at a considerable rate of speed, the Favorite ran stem on to the Pride, catching her at a point about a third of her length from the bow, or nearly on a line with her mast, listing her over to port, and cutting right through her port side. 1 his was the collision as said to have been seen from the deck of the Pride of the Yarra. —Otago Witness.