I’ve been posting about the Titanic for the past few weeks. With my obsessive mind, I started to look at other shipwrecks like the Lusitania, Britannic, and other wrecks. Obbverse (who rode on this ship the year before) mentioned this ship when I started the Titanic series. It was a terrible, tragic event that happened in New Zealand.
The passenger ferry TEV Wahine (Turbine-Electric Vessel) left Lyttelton for Wellington on April 9, 1968, on what should have been a normal overnight crossing. The Wahine was one of New Zealand’s best-known ships. It was a state-of-the-art turbo-electric roll-on/roll-off passenger ferry built in Scotland for the Union Steamship Company of New Zealand. Entering service in 1966, she operated the overnight route between Lyttelton and Wellington.Modern for the time, steady in rough seas, and trusted by passengers who made the trip regularly across Cook Strait. But as the ship approached Wellington Harbor the next morning on the 10th, one of the worst storms (Cyclone Giselle) in New Zealand history hit hard.
Winds were over 100 miles per hour in places. Waves smashed into the ship, and visibility disappeared in rain and spray. Captain Hector Robertson tried to guide the ferry through the harbor entrance, but the storm pushed the Wahine onto Barrett Reef around 5 a.m. The impact tore open the hull and started the chain of events that doomed the ship.
The Wahine had survived rough weather before. But the storm kept hammering the ship. Water flooded in and the engines eventually failed. Lifeboats became dangerous in the huge seas. Some were smashed against the ship while others overturned in the surf. Rescue efforts were difficult because helicopters and small boats were fighting hurricane-force winds themselves. Some passengers survived by floating for hours in the freezing water while local fishermen and rescuers pulled people from the harbor. Others never made it. There were 734 passengers and crew on board. Fifty-one people lost their lives that day, another died several weeks later, and a 53rd victim died in 1990 from injuries sustained in the wreck, making it one of New Zealand’s deadliest maritime tragedies.
The sinking of the Wahine shocked New Zealand much like the Titanic disaster shocked an earlier generation. It became one of those moments people remembered for the rest of their lives. Today, the Wahine disaster is still remembered in New Zealand as both a tragedy and a story of courage from passengers, rescuers, and crew. All were caught in a storm that few ships could have survived.
Before I end this, here is where a community came together. Quartermaster Tom Dartford commanded a lifeboat through 20-foot (6 meters) swells, rescuing over 100 people. Constables John Bowman & Paul Dogget: Members of the Police Dive Squad who rushed to the harbor and pulled over 100 freezing, heavily clothed passengers out of the freezing sea and into their small boat. Local Residents fought the storm and ran to the surf and pulled in strangers and carried them to their homes.
I have included two documentaries. The bottom video is just a quick 5-6 minute video, and the top one is an in-depth documentary. (Pictures at bottom)
