THE STORMY TASMAN

Waipa Post, Volume 42, Issue 3303, 30 May 1931, Page 6

THE STORMY TASMAN

STORIES OF OLD SAILING DAYS. (By George H. Johnston.) Even in the' fourteenth century, when the ancestor of the Maoris pointed his great, high-prowed canoe southward, the Tasman Sea Was probably known as treacherous water. During the summer of 1642-643 Abel Tasman's thought, no doubt, ran in similar channels as he thrashed the clumsy Heemskerck and Zeehaen down from the Solomons across the heaving waste of the Tasman Sea, making for that mysterious " great south land" which to-day we know as Australia. That storm-tossed ocean between the mainland and New Zealand has been synonymous with the phrase " dirty weather." All types and rigs of ships have criss-crossed its length and breadth; hundreds less fortunate have plumbed its depth—depths which in places considerably exceed 15,000 ft. Lordly East Indians have sailed the same waters as humble colliers, swift clippers, have superceded grim convict transports, and have themselves been ousted by swifter steamers. Recently a Melbourne yacht, the Oimara, returned home after having twice crossed the Tasman Sea in heavy weather, her return voyage being made in competition with two other small yachts. These two, the Rangi and Teddy, also made the double journey safely. The voyages were accomplished, despite occasional glimpses of the Tasman Sea at its' very worst. The run across was made in the splendid time of fewer than 11 days.

This compares quite favourably with the passage of the 10-ton cutter Guilding Star—a slightly larger vessell than the Oimara —which in 1862 •took 81 days to reach Wellington from Melbourne, arriving weeks after all hope of her safety had been abandoned. When two days from the Heads the little vessel was overtaken by a terrific south-westerly gale, with that mountainous sea so typical of the Tasman. One wave ripped the rudder from the stern of the Guiding Star, and for more than two months the boat drifted practically at the mercy of winds and currents, and it more by luck than by good judgment that the Guiding Star eventually made the coast of New Zealand. Fortunately her cargo was chieflly sheep for the gold diggers, and these were slaughtered and eaten as occasion demanded by the crew. A somewhat similar story takes us back more than a century to the end of 1814, when the Sydney sealing brig Betsey cleared Port Jackson for a sealing voyage to Macquarie Island in the South Pacific. In those days the old skippers of the colonies were usually hard-bitten illiterates, but for all that practical sailors of the finest stamp, with superb knowledge of seamanship and ships. When the Betsey was blown offshore in August of the following year the skipper had not the remotest idea of his position. The compass had been damaged beyond 1 repair. For many terrible weeks the lost ship, drifted aimlessly across the grim Tasman Sea, the water sup- : ply getting lower, food diminishing, the crew-growing daily weaker and more haggard. Eventually the food gave out altogether, and the following day the sealer was abandoned off 1 the coast of New Zealand. Of.the 19 men of the Betsey only eight survived to land at North Cape in October of 1815.

The fastest passage ever made acros the Tasman Sea by a sailing ship is credited to the pretty little topsail schooner, Huia, which ran from Sydney to Kaipara Heads in the astonishing time of four days and six hours. The Huia is still a frequent visitor to the Yarra. Last year she ran from Auckland to Melbourne in 10 days. In the old days there was keen fighting for the honour of making the record trans-Tasman passage by the fast vessels engaged in the intercolonial timber trade. In 1859 the record was six and a-half days. Three years later the barque Alice Cameron reduced this to five days and 22 hours, that record standing unbroken for 15 years. In 1876 the collier barque Adela lowered the time by 22 hours on a voyage from Newcastle to Auckland. It was not until the 'nineties that the little Huia established the existing record. Her time has never since been beaten, or even equalled, and owing to the paucity of sailing vessels it probably never will be. The storms of the Tasman Sea are renowned among seafaring men for their violence, and disquieting suddenness. I have spoken with many seamen from large steel steamers who never expected to survive some of the gales. In 1872 the coal-laden barque Alice Cameron was battered by a Tasman Sea gale of such power that the lifeboat was literally blown away plank by plank, and a spar of 6in. hardwood was broken asunder by the force of the wind. The barque was soon in such straits that it became necessary to cut away the masts, and only this resort saved the ship from going to the bottom. The barque arrived at Sydney under jury rig, but the timbers were badly strained, for in the following year the Alice Cam-

eron left Newcastle with coal for Manila, and went down with all hands in the Tasman Sea! The timber barque Killarney narrowly escaped destruction through a cause possibly unique in the annals of the sea. While bringing timber from Whangaroa in 1890 the ship encountered a thunderstorm. At the height of the storm a terrific thunderclap was heard and a meteorite plunged into the sea at the side of the vessel, sending a column of water more than 60ft. into the air. If the meteorite had fallen on the Killarney it would have crashed through the timbers like a bullet through timber.