TAIAROA WRECK ANNIVERSARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21468, 17 April 1933, Page 12

TAIAROA WRECK ANNIVERSARY

Sir, —Your account of the wreck of S.S. Taiaroa is correct as far as you give it, in your issue of the 11th inst. 1 was chief engineer of the vessel, and as far as 1 am aware I am now the only survivor of the crew. Mr. J. Fielder, the chief steward of the Taiaroa, "was afterwards lost in the S.S. Ohau about 1897 or 1898, when that vessel was supposed to have foundered off Cape Campbell in a heavy sea. Captain George Thompson who commanded the Taiaroa, died about four or five years ago in Port Chalmers. Of those on the three ship's boats that capsized, only three passengers were saved, viz., the late Sergeant Grant, of the Garrison Artillery, Gilbert Hutton, and a man named McQuarters. both seafaring men. None of the crew was saved out of these three boats, two of which were large lifeboats with airtight tanks. I was in the captain's boat, along with the other 10 of the crew. We had also three male passengers in our boat. None of the women was although they were in the two large lifeboats, the safest boats in the ship. When our boat got blown away from the wreck we kept her running before the wind and a heavy following sea, and we rounded Cape Campbell about seven or eight o'clock on the morning following the wreck. The lighthouse-keepers did not see us rounding the cape. We then got into warmer weather and smooth water and made for the pilot station up the Wairau River, landing there about 1.45 p.m., after about 19 hours in the boat. We were taken to Blenheim, and then to Wellington. The captain and myself were the last two to leave the ship. The vessel was an iron one and did not break up as soon as was expected, and it turned out we would have been safer to have remained on board till daylight. It is, however, easy to be wise afterwards. Fourteen passengers were drowned and sis saved, and 19 of the crew were drowned and eight saved. S. Dalrymple. Retired Senior Inspector of Machinery.