MEMORIES OF THE OKTA

Southland Times, Issue 21178, 3 September 1930, Page 2

MEMORIES OF THE OKTA

DISASTER OF 1913 RECALLED. (From our Bluff Correspondent). The loss of a ship inevitably looses a store of reminiscences along the waterfront, where many who have “gone down to the sea in ships' 1 are found. Thus, the recent. sinking of the Tahiti served to recall incidents of their sefaring days to Bluff sailors and ex-sailors, and it was only natural that the name of the Okta should be freely mentioned. The Okta was wrecked on Peiham rock, near the entrance to Bluff Harbour, on August 18, 1913. The recollections of Captain R. C. Harbord of Bluff Harbour Board, who in his then official capacity of pilot boarded the doomed vessel after she struck, are particularly interesting, embracing as they do the part-history of a once-iamous and beautiful ocean flier of the past. “The Okta was originally built as a fullrigged ship,” said Captain Harbord. “I cannot say in what year she was launched; but I know that her tonnage was 1058, and that prior to 1876 she went ashore on the Californian coast, was salvaged and bought by Americans, and rechristened the Mariposa. After trading awhile between Liverpool and the U.S.A, she was repurchased by her original owners and once more given her first name—the Jessie Osborne. In 1897 I went aboard her at Liverpool to see an apprentice friend of mine. (One memory which lingers in my mind, by the way, is that each of the four apprentices she then carried bore a ‘colour’ name. They were William Black, Charles White, William Brown and George Grey; surely a remarkable coincidence!). “The Jessie Osborne was a beautiful ship, and a noted flier in her day. She was peculiar tosother vessels in that, instead of a topgallant rail she had a main rail right round her bulwarks. As far as 1 can recollect. she was the only ship I had seen similarly rigged. “In the years that followed I lost track of her, but the records show she was chartered by the New Zealand Shipping Company to bring passengers to this country and made several successful voyages. Still later she was bought by a Norwegian firm and her name was changed to the Okia. At the time of her loss this firm still owned her. On her last voyage she was bound for Falmouth from Tasmania with piles for Dover Harbour works and sprang a leak shortly after leaving port. The captain endeavoured to make Bluff as a port of refuge, but as you know, he just failed. “Quite unaware of her previous identity I boarded the Okta after she struck and at once noticed the peculiarity of her rig. Immediately a recollection of other years came to me, and 1 climbed to the forecastle head to look at her bell. Those who remember the days of canvas will understand my feelings when I read the name Jessie Osborne on it. (The name is rarely altered on a ship’s bell, you see. The ship s own title may be changed, but her original name is left on the bell). “It is interesting to note that, several relics of the Okta, or Jessie Osborne—the

name I prefer to remember her by—remain in Bluff. The captain’s gig. built of cedar, was bought by a local fishing firm. It was lengthened and turned into a launch, and may still be see in the basin at the wharf. Her spars were used as electric light poles here. One of them is still doing duty about halfway along McDougall Street in the locality familiarly known as Green Bush. And several houses round the Point have fences built of her driftwood. Her bull, for which there were'many eager inquiries, was secured, I believe, for the Borstal Institute. Although a bugle has been substituted in that institution, I have no doubt the Jessie Osborne’s bell may still be seen there. “Much of the cargo was also salvaged,” said Captain Harbord in conclusion. “A traction engine was set at the point, and as the weather was favourable the diver employed—a very capable man at his job—succeeded in fastening a cable to the piles which were then drawn ashore. By the way,. May, the diver, was afterwards associated in an unsuccessful attempt to locate and recover the gold lost in the General Grant -when that vessel was wrecked on Auckland Island.”