NEW ZEALAND SHIPWRECKS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXX, 16 December 1936, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND SHIPWRECKS

A MONUMENTAL RECORD The compilation of “Shipwrecks, New Zealand Disasters,” a volume of over 500 pages, must have involved a tremendous amount of research. Indeed,, we know that it has taken several years to compile. It is the product of Chas. W. N. Ingram, of sea-going experience, and P. Owen Wheatley, • a journalist with a 20 years’ record of the reporting of doings on the waterfront, ship-disaster and general newspaper work. Mr Wheatley was a visitor to Nelson’ last week, and in conversation gave some idea of the task involved in the production of “Shipwrecks”—the tedious searching of every news column of more than 35,000 newspapers, the delving into old records, and so on. The authors were greatly assisted by newspaper proprietors—especially in Dunedin and Auckland —and by Marine Department officials, to one of whom, James O. Harwood, the book is dedicated in grateful recognition of his interest in the publication and his Willingness to assist. The extent of the research may be realised from the fact that it deals with the period 1795 to 1936. The authors admit there may be some omissions or errors, and there are, but corrections would be welcomed as there is sure to be a new edition in due course of this valuable record. We are told that there have been 1300 wrecks in or about New Zealand during the period mentioned —from the time when the Endeavour became a total loss in the Sounds. This year the number was increased by eight, including the recent loss of the Abel Tasman on Greymouth bar. The mishaps are narrated in chronological order, and we learn that the greatest number have been at Kaipara, Greymouth, Hokitika and Cook Strait. Although the book has a good index it would be of added value if an indication were given in index form of wrecks according to localities. The large volume is full of interesting detail and the authors are to be commended upon their efforts, which have been done full j|stice to ■n the matter of production, with many illustrations, by the Dunedin Book Publishing Association: Naturally, brevity has been essential, but the greatest wrecks receive most space. A foreword by the Hon. P. Eraser, Minister of Marine, remarks truly as he comments on “this monumental work,” an invaluable historical document: —“Ships and the - sea have a fascination for practically everybody (except, perhaps, for those seamen who long for a life ashore), and shipwrecks have a special and even an awesome fascination for the average person. As stories either in journalism or in literature they c.re popular. They have also an important historical as well as an anecdotal and navigation value. The authors of ‘Shipwrecks, New Zealand Disasters have treated their subject admirably from these three points of view. History, romance, and tragedy find then places in these live, vivid pages, and oass, procession-like, through the years that have sped since Captain Cook, one hundred and twenty-seven years after Abel Tasman sighted the South Island,, first introduced New Zealand to the British people and to the world.” Messrs Ingram and Wheatley deserve congratulations. As the Minister says, they , have produced an important record of dangci, disaster and' enterprise and courage.