The Mate's Story

Manawatu Times, Volume LXIV, Issue 162, 16 July 1907, Page 5

The Mate's Story

Ship Smashed to Matchwood.

The mate and second mate of the Woollahra state that the captain wanted to stick to the ship until daylight, and when the crew left he was in the cabin with three feet of water around him, and seemed heartbroken, As the men unhooked the davit falls of the gig and shoved oft' the ship was breaking to pieces. They could hear the plates cracking. A seaman named McNaughton kept in the fore part of the ship, but when the crew were leaving one of his shipmates dragged him off the forecastle and they reached the bulwarks just Aβ the gig broke loose, and jumped for it.

McNaughton was never seen again. As soon as a landing had been effected the mate musteied and found the captain and McNaughton missing. • Some of them went inland a little and discovered the McMenamin homestead where they were treated with hospitality, and being refreshed they commenced to walk around the beach to Island Bay and the city. When they left the ship lay pounding on the rocks. The port side buckled up like a carrot, says the mate, she looked as if she had been sawn in two.

Captain Andresen was 46 years" of age. He leaves a widow and four sons. He was fourteen years master of the barque Elizabeth Graham and had been ou the Woollahra eighteen months. The tug Duco steamed around Terawhiti this afternoon. On the beach in a little inlet four miles south-east of the Cape stood the shell of the barque, the stern almost high and dry. A little distance away was a piece of the stem with the etump of the jibboom pointing southward. This jetsam was all that remained of the Woollahra. The Trreokage was being pounded by heavy combers and the beach was strewn with wreckage. Theie was hardly anything more than three feet in length, everything had been smashed to matchwood.