Wahine Day

April 10, 1968, was the day of New Zealand's worst ever storm. 

entrance to Wellington Harbor on a good day

I remember it well. The wind was so strong that I thought the huge Norfolk Pine across the road was going to be pulled out of the ground. The tip of it was being whipped from side to side so far that I was sure it was going to touch the road. Power lines fell, roofs were lost and much damage was done to people and property. Eventually the top mast of the ferry was recovered and now stands at the Wahine Memorial. Somewhere at home in NZ we have a very small piece of the ill-fated vessel.

 

Huge waves and 220 kilometre an hour winds drove it onto Barrets Reef. Then with its engines out of action, the ship was forced off the rocks and blown towards seatoun

On the evening of 9 April 1968, the Wahine departed from Lyttelton for a routine overnight crossing to Wellington, carrying 610 passengers and 125 crew members.

This report is from Wiki

 

Extreme weather conditions

Track map of Cyclone Giselle

 In the early morning of 10 April, two violent storms merged over Wellington, creating a single extratropical cyclone storm that was the worst recorded in New Zealand's history. Cyclone Giselle was heading south after causing much damage in the north of North Island. It hit Wellington at the same time as another storm which had driven up the West Coast of the South Island from Antarctica the winds in Wellington were the strongest ever recorded. At one point they reached a speed of 275 km/h and in one Wellington suburb alone ripped off the roofs of 98 houses. Three ambulances and a truck were blown onto their sides when they tried to go into the area to bring out injured people.

As the storms hit Wellington harbour, the Wahine was making her way out of Cook Straight on the last leg of her overnight journey to Wellington. Although there were weather warnings out when she set out from Lyttelton, there was no indication that storms would be of a severe nature and any worse than those often experienced by vessels crossing the Cook Straight..

Aground in Wellington Harbour

At 5:50 a.m., with winds gusting at between 130 and 150 km/h, Captain Hector Gordon Robertson decided to enter the harbour. Twenty minutes later the winds had increased to 160 km/h, and the ship lost its radar. A huge wave pushed the Wahine off course and in line with Barrett Reef. The captain was unable to turn back on course, and decided to keep turning the ferry around and back out to sea again. For 30 minutes the Wahine battled into the waves and wind, but by 6:40 a.m. had lost control of her engines and had been driven onto the southern tip of Barrett Reef, near the harbour entrance less than one mile from shore. The Wahine drifted helplessly along the reef, shearing off her starboard propeller and gouging a large hole in her hull on the starboard side of the stern, beneath the waterline. Passengers were told that the ferry was aground, to put on their lifejackets and report to assembly points around the ship. The storm continued to grow more intense. As the winds increased to over 250 km/h, the Wahine dragged its anchors and drifted into the harbour, close to the western shore. The weather was so bad that no help could be given from the harbour or the shore. At about 11.00 a.m. a harbour tug managed to reach the vessel, and tried to attach a line and tow the ferry, but the line gave way. Other attempts failed, but the deputy harbourmaster managed to climb aboard the Wahine from the pilot launch, which had also reached the scene.

Disaster unfolding

Looking east on a calm day over the entry of Wellington Harbour disaster occurred.

At about 1.15 p.m. the combined effect of the tide and the storm swung the Wahine around, providing a patch of clear water sheltered from the wind. As the ferry suddenly listed further and reached the point of no return, Captain Robertson gave the order to abandon ship.  Unfortunately the Wahine's severe starboard list left the four lifeboats on her port side useless. Only the four lifeboats on her starboard side could be launched.

The starboard motor lifeboat, Boat S1, capsized shortly after being launched. Those aboard were thrown into the water, and many of them drowned in the rough seas. Survivor Shirley Hick, remembered for having lost two of her three children in the Wahine disaster, recalled this event vividly Alma had drowned in this lifeboat. Some managed to hold onto the overturned boat as it drifted across the harbour to the eastern shore, towards Pencarrow Head.  The three remaining standard lifeboats, which according to a number of survivors were terribly overcrowded, did manage to reach shore. Lifeboat S2 managed to reach the rocky Seatoun Beach near Strathmore Park on the western side of the channel with roughly seventy passengers and crew, as did Lifeboat S4, which was terribly overcrowded with over one hundred people. The third lifeboat, a heavily overcrowded Boat S3, landed on the beach near the Wellington suburb of Eastbourne about three miles away on the opposite side of the channel.

Due to the lack of lifeboats, hundreds of passengers and crew were forced into the rough waters as the Wahine sank. When the weather cleared, the sight of the Wahine foundering in the harbour urged many ships to race out of Wellington to the scene, including a number of tugs, fishing boats, yachts and small personal craft. These vessels managed to rescue hundreds of people. However, as the storm began to clear, a rather peculiar event occurred. Because of the angle at which Giselle struck the North Island, a vast amount of seawater was swept into Wellington harbour by the storm. When the storm began to calm, all that water began to pour out of the harbour and back into the ocean. With it, went hundreds of the Wahine's passengers and crew. Because of this, over 200 passengers and crew from the Wahine reached the rocky shore of the east side of the channel, south of Eastbourne. Because this area of Wellington Harbour was mostly desolate, unpopulated areas, many of the survivors were exposed to the elements for several hours while rescue teams tried to navigate the gravel road leading down the shoreline from Wellington. It was here where a number of bodies were recovered as well.

At about 2.30 p.m. the Wahine rolled completely onto her side.

Some of the survivors reached the shore only to die of exhaustion or exposure. 51 people died at the time, and two others died later from injuries sustained in the shipwreck, 53 victims in all. Most of the victims were middle-aged or elderly, and also included three children; they died from drowning, exposure or injuries from being battered on the rocks. 46 people's bodies were found; 566 passengers were safe, as were 110 crew, and six were missing.