TERRIFIC GALE.

Colonist, Volume V, Issue 467, 15 April 1862, Page 3

TERRIFIC GALE.

On Monday night, 7th April, Auckland was visited by one of. the sharpest gales that have been experienced for many years. Of this as of a.l such visitors,- — especially towards the equinox,—there were timely indications. Sunday was close and calm ; and in the evening, the moon was begirt with a halo, which they who were at sea, looked on with grave suspicion; the barometer, too, gave its warnings, and on Monday, at daylight, there were unmistakeable notifications of an impending storm. Rain fell thick and fast, and as night closed, the wind began to rise, not rapidly, but gradually, until about midnight, when it burst forth with tremendous fury, veering from E. N. E. to N. E., blowing a perfect hurricane in the squalls, with short lulls, during which, the rain descended in sheets. It was truly a feaiful night, the tempest raging with unmitigated violence from before midnight until 4 or 5 a.m. of yesterday morning. In town and country many of the inhabitants were unable to sleep, houses creaking and trembling under the force of the blast, and the rain beating in wherever a leak was found practible. • But the most distressing occurrences took place among the shipping. Yesterday, Commercial Bay was a complete scene of disastrous shipwrecks, small vessels, being piled upon each other, driven against and sunk alongside of the eastern and weather face of the Queen-street Wharf, which it is surprising should have received comparatively little injury. At the angle of Custom-house street, there lay two vessels, —the schooner John, with her rudder unshipt, and bowsprit over the wharf—beside her, was the cutter Asp, well known as a tender to lI.M. Surveying ship Rattlesnake, and latterly as a yacht of I Mr. J. C. Blackett. In hull, she seems to have sustained but little injury, but, 'bove deck, a clean sweep has been made of every thing. The Asp, we believe, is now the property of the Bishop of Melanesia. A little further down the wharf, the Eclipse, a new schooner, lay full of water, her masts standing, but her stern frame

smashed in, and her bulwarks broken up in several places. At Waterman's Sta'us, wrecks were huddled together in a lump, more than one on the top of tho other. Of these, the cutter Clyde, was only recognisable by her mast, her hull being under water and beneath the cargo boat Triad, whose mast and bowsprit, were gone, but whose hull, it is imagined, may have escaped with comparatively slight damage. Ahead of the Triad, lay the schooner Township of Tauranga, dismasted, stove in many places, and rapidly breaking up. In this crowded spot, we likewise perceived some fragmental portions of a boat said to be the pinnace or one of the cutters of H.M.S. Harrier. In this group was the schooner Rose Ann, on her beam ends, stern smashed to pieces, bulwarks gone, and the vessel beaten in every direction. It is said that the Rose Ann had some £2000 worth of property on board. In the coarse of the day she was hove up by tackles from the schooner Zillah, which lay alongside, and had been sorely scraped along her port side. The cutter Wanderer lay inside of all, much injured in different parts, but with her mast and rigging standing. Abreast of the wharf, the new schooner Fawn, the cutters Bessy, Shamrock, and Annie Laurie, were at anchor, all much damaged. Further up, the three-masted schooner Vistula, lying alongside, had her jibboom snapped of? short by the cap, port cat-head carried away, hawse pipe broken, and scraped in different places. Immediately under the Vistula's forefoot lies the unfortunate steamer Phoenix, full of water, broken-backed, and rapidly going to pieces. • This has been truly an unlucky ship. Built to receive the machinery of the ship-wrecked Emu, there was some difficulty in getting her launched. Scarcely was she ready for work, when the water was mysteriously let off from her boilers, and the fires having been lit in ignorance of this fact, the boilers were burnt, and repaired at a heavy cost. She was then sold to Otago proprietors, and had been but ten or twelve days from that port, when this last and irreparable misfortune befel her. The schooner Sea Breeze, in running to leeward of the wharf, fouled the brig Sporting Lass, fitting for sea, carrying away the brig's bowsprit close to the stem, and her own bulwarks from abaft the mainmast on the starboard side. The ship City of Manchester, lying at the extremity of the wharf, sustained damage; and the barque Kate, just arrived from Sydney, lyiug at the outer J had the covering boards round her stern smashed, one of her boats torn from her davits, some of her covering boards opened, and her foretop-gallant-masts carried away, by coming in contact with the City of Manchester's jib-boom. The American whaling barque, Atkins Adams, at anchor inside the North Head, drove a short distance and then brought up. H. M. S. S. Harrier, 17 guns/Commander Sir Malcolm M'Gregor, Bart., likewise drove. She, however, got up steam, and resumed her position soon after daylight. We lament to learn that two of her men were drowned, the only lives lost on this unfortunate occasion. [We have heard since that this is incorrect.] The sacrifica of property ha? been variously estimated at from £5,000 to £10,000. Much of this, we fear is uninsured, and the loss will, therefore, fall upon many of our most industrious and energetic citizens. As for the Wharf, probably no piled structure in the world ever had to contend against such an amount of straining and thumping, some 1400 or 1600 tons of shipping heaving against it; —had it not been of the strongest a breach must have been effected in one quarter or another. As it is, some piles have been nearly sawn through by the strain and action of chains and hawsers, one or two have been smashed in the middle, and a few pile head have been carried away. As a whole the damage is trifling and easy of repair. Were the pier carried to the extent it ought to be, with a terminal T of fitting breadth; and the inner T's extended on both sides so as to furnish suitable berths to ships of moderate tonnage, no such casualties as those which the Kate and City of Manchester have sustained could have befallen. The sooner such provisions are made, the better it will be for the credit as well as the interest of the port of Auckland. We must again be permitted to urge the suggestion we threw out upon occasion of the former gale—namely, that on the threatened approach of a storm, a foui weather flag, (similar to those in use in British ports) should be hoisted, and all vessels lying on the weather side of the wharf be compelled by the harbor-master, to haul off.