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Chapter Ten

Within five minutes of leaving Worser Bay the power boat skippered by Jim Toulis was out by the Wahine, to be the first private boat on the scene. Toulis could see the tug Tapuhi and pilot launch Tiakina further east of the ferry, which at that stage was on the point of capsizing. The rail-ferry Aramoana was hove to a few hundred yards north with boat ladders dangling down her sides. She heeled and pitched in the big swells and looked a daunting sight.

For Toulis and his crewman Bill Bell there was plenty to do. All around them in the water were dozens of people, and further east lifeboats and rafts, all needing help. "We didn't know where to start. There were people everywhere and we went round from group to group trying to find those needing to be rescued immediately."

An experienced boatman, Toulis found no difficulty in handling the conditions near the Wahine. The wind drop had made all the difference. As his boat moved among those in the water, Wahine crewmen directed him to those suffering most. "They were great, those crew members. They didn't try and get themselves rescued but just told us where to go."

The two in the boat managed to manhandle three elderly women and two elderly men aboard. Toulis remembers it as quite a struggle. "They were just about out to it." One of them was seventy-eight-year-old Arthur Welsh, of Gore. After leaving the ship he and his wife floated in the water for a while before people on a passing raft pulled his wife and two other women aboard. "I felt more contented when I saw my wife rescued." He floated around some more until hauled into the power boat. Soon after, Jim Toulis spotted a baby floating by himself in the water. "We thought he was dead, as he was quite unconscious when we lifted him aboard." Mr Welsh remembers the baby being picked up: "He lay by my feet and I looked at him several times, and thought he was dead." The baby was Gordon Hick, one-year-old that day. Second steward Bryan McMaster had been caring for him since leaving the ship. A non-swimmer, McMaster floated on his back with the baby on page 118his chest. The swells lifted and dropped them and the motion made the two quite sick. Little Gordon was crying and McMaster wondered what would happen to them. After thirty minutes they had floated south and east of the Wahine, and then a big wave washed Gordon out of McMaster's grasp. A few minutes later the second steward was picked up by Jim Toulis and he found Gordon already in the boat, apparently dead.

The boat was drifting all the time towards the turbulent seas caused by the outflowing tide meeting the incoming swells. At the time McMaster was pulled aboard Arthur Welsh remembers a big wave hitting the small boat and almost overturning it: "The man in charge said 'Hell, let's get out of here'." Fearing for the safety of those rescued, Toulis decided to head back to Seatoun Beach. Because of the seas and the extra weight aboard the overloaded boat could make only eight knots and as it ploughed back Arthur Welsh was anxious for those still in the water: "The most vivid thoughts I have are of the expressions on the faces of the unfortunate people we had to pass by and could not help."

There were hundreds who needed help, but when they were in the best position for being rescued, in the calmer waters around the ferry, there were few boats on the scene. The current carried them away to the east and the big swells quickly spread them over a wide area. Some managed to cling together in little groups of three or four, but others were on their own. In one case a young boy knelt crying on a small wooden raft while an old man hung on to it in the water beside him.

The Wahine lifeboats and liferafts were also moving east from the stern of the ship.

Passengers in number three boat under seaman Terry Victory soon mastered the propelling mechanism—large rods geared to propellors—and the boat headed toward Eastbourne with the sea behind.

Number four boat with quartermaster Tom Dartford at the helm was managing to stop its drift to a certain extent by the survivors' use of the propelling gear, and as people in the water drifted towards it they were hauled aboard. One of Dartford's crew mates, George Brabander, floated along on his back to the boat with the twelve to eighteen-month-old-baby he had taken from the Wahine sitting safely on his lifejacket. Brabander passed the. baby into the lifeboat but found the boat was riding too high in the page 119water for him to clamber in. He asked one of those aboard to hand over one of the lifelines, which were still tied inside the boat. The survivor did not understand what he was talking about so Brabander hauled himself up and broke it out himself. He stayed in the water, hanging on.

Meanwhile the lifeboat and a lifcraft had drifted together. The raft was the one Mrs Ingrid Munro had managed to jump into after handing her daughter Monique from the Wahine into the lifeboat. As she fell into the raft she collapsed like a rag doll, felt a sharp pain shoot up her spine and passed out for a few minutes. Coming to, she looked about for her brother "Warner and his friend Stuart. The raft was upside down and partially deflated but it was floating, and Stuart was hanging on to the side. "I pulled him aboard and looked round for Warner. He was also hanging on and staring ahead with glassy eyes. I told Stuart to get him while I grabbed the lifeboat." Her back still sore, Mrs Munro struggled aboard the lifeboat. It was lurching in the heavy seas and Mrs Munro was worried about its safety. "I yelled out for everyone to sit down as the boat looked a seething mass of people and somewhere among them was Monique. The constant moving about put us in grave danger of capsizing. Everyone took up the cry: 'Sit down, sit down.' I looked around for the raft and couldn't see it. Where were the boys? I prayed hard that everyone would be saved. I couldn't see Monique, and asked around for her. Then someone passed her to me and I sat consoling her and a little boy who was sitting beside me on his mother's knee. Monique managed to be sick again but no one cared. The rain and spray washed off most of it."

Unknown to Mrs Munro the liferaft was still alongside, its ropes and tapes tangled with the boat's propellor and rudder.

Clarrie O'Neill, his wife and six children were also in the boat. He was worried about the waves and feared the boat would get side on to them. "We were helpless, and couldn't do a thing. A woman came floating towards me in the water crying, 'Save me, save me.' I reached out and grabbed her hand and she cried out, 'Don't let me go, don't let me go.' She must have been in her fifties, and weighed between fifteen and sixteen stone. I had a terrible job to try and get her aboard and I had to get another man to help me. I told her how glad we were to have her aboard.

"Then a woman in the boat cried out 'Has anyone seen my page 120baby?' A man at the end of the boat held up a poor mite, all dripping wet and asked 'Is this it?' It was. The woman took her baby and cuddled it to her. It looked so cold and bedraggled that I took off my felt hat which I had on all the time and put it on the baby's head to keep the rain off. The woman did not say anything, just gave me a look of thankfulness that was worth all the silver and gold in the world."

Seaman George Brabander had freed the propellor and rudder, and the lifeboat, with the liferaft in tow, was valiantly trying to make towards Seatoun. The pilot launch Tiakina loomed up, took the lifeboat's painter and started to drag the craft back towards the Wahine, by this time almost capsized. The Tiakina had already managed to pick up five survivors. The tow was too fast for the liferaft tied on behind, and the launch had to stop while those on the raft were transferred to the lifeboat.

Mrs Munro, still unaware the liferaft was still with the boat, was relieved to suddenly see her brother's friend Stuart climb aboard. "I asked him by sign language where Warner was and he indicated he was aboard also. We were all together again."

Another of the seven to get into the boat from the raft was Colin Bower of Whangarei. He was beginning to feel the cold, as were most of the others in the boat. "I looked around and some people were crying and others looked terrible. One game old lady was sitting in the bottom with a broken leg which had turned blue. She just sat there, turning the propulsion handle."

With the launch towing, the boat was under way, but soon after the painter broke. The Tiakina crew passed over a four-inch manila rope and they were away again. However, Brabander was worried about the possibility of the line breaking again, and as the passengers were managing the propulsion gear satisfactorily, he told the Tiakina that the boat would be able to make it on its own.

The line was cast off—and promptly fouled the pilot launch's propellors.

Leaving the launch immobilised, the lifeboat headed for Seatoun foreshore and safety under its own power. The spirits of the survivors aboard rose as they realised the danger was nearly over. Clarrie O'Neill started singing Michael Row the Boat Ashore and many of the sixty or seventy aboard took up the chorus.

The rain was still falling and the wind from the northwest was chilling. Those on the top tier round the sides of the boat were the page 121most exposed. O'Neill called out to his children to see if they were OK. They were. "The little ones were sitting down in the bottom of the boat trying to keep out of the wind and rain. They didn't murmur the whole time."

The boat slowly rolled along until it passed Steeple Rock off the end of the beach. From their perch in it the American tourists, Ernest and Frances Crosby, could see what looked like hundreds of people on the beach with ambulances, buses, and all sorts of vehicles behind them. Those aboard number four boat were safe. While the lifeboat continued on its way to shore, Joe Bown's launch Cuda, the second private boat on the scene, was busy picking up people from the water. Earlier, as the launch had neared the Wahine, Bown saw four people leaping off her. They appeared to be the last. Soon he and his crewman Cyril Austin came across two crewmen and hauled them aboard. Next were two elderly women, and it needed the strength of the four aboard the launch to fish them out of the water. Bown remembers one of the women was under five foot tall but "built like a barrel". Both women were already suffering from exposure and shock and one seemed to have a broken arm.

The Cuda cruised on, and came across two men—Chief Officer Luly and a seaman. Bown remembers they refused help, saying they were all right, so the launch carried on.

Next they found Captain Robertson and Captain Galloway, the deputy harbourmaster, who by then had been in the water about half an hour. Bown and his helpers nearly strangled the Wahine's master while trying to get him aboard. Both Captain Robertson and the deputy harbourmaster were big men, and with their clothing waterlogged were almost impossible to drag on to the launch. Bown discussed with Captain Robertson what to do next as the condition of the two old ladies was causing concern. Both were semi-conscious.

Captain Robertson was convinced that all those who had abandoned the Wahine would be perfectly safe. He anticipated those in the water being picked up by liferafts and lifeboats which would then be towed into Seatoun by rescue boats, so it was decided to head back to Seatoun and get medical attention for the two women.

At the captain's request Bown took the Cuda close to the Wahine on the way back, for an extra check that nobody was still aboard.

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As they passed, the ferry was at an acute angle and then capsized. They could see straight down the funnel before the water poured on to her still hot boiler pipes and a great gout of yellowish steam rushed out. The ship was finished, but her port side remained above the water. The Cuda headed for Seatoun wharf with a saddened Captain Robertson aboard.

The Wahine's final plunge was also seen by the crew of the surfboat Miss Europa. Earlier they had passed the doomed ferry and pressed on towards the east, searching for survivors. Suddenly the sweep saw the black shape of a liferaft a hundred yards ahead. It appeared to be empty but the crew, their arms aching, pulled on the oars and, rounding the raft, saw what they had been looking for. Two men, grey with cold, clung to the lines around the raft. They said nothing when the surfboat drew close but their eyes showed their feelings. They were hauled aboard and lay silent on the bottom of the boat, the brilliant orange of their lifejackets contrasting with the grey pallor of their faces.

With the breaking seas dangerously close the Miss Europa turned for home. As they neared the Wahine she rolled for the last time. One of the oarsmen, Pat Mclntyre, remembers the older of the two crewmen looking sadly at the sight. This was Luly; after waving the Cuda on to help others he and the seaman had stayed with the raft until picked up by the surfboat.

As the surfboat headed for shore the crew saw other small boats converging on the scene. They waved them away towards the eastern shore and then wearily pulled on the oars.

Surging over the swells in his 16-foot runabout Vivaci, Bill Bowe and his two sons came upon three men and a woman floating in the water, arms linked. They all looked middle-aged, and shock and cold had sapped their strength. While fourteen-year-old Trevor kept the boat's bows pointing into the seas young Bill, sixteen, and his father set about dragging the survivors aboard. It was a tough job but at last they got the woman into the boat. Bowe recalls she kept moaning "Don't let my husband go."

Then they set about pulling in the man next to her, who they presumed was her husband, and had just got him inboard when two big waves hit the craft and water poured in. The other two men were swept away and Bowe yelled out that they would come round and get them. This was easier said than done: the boat had drifted into an area where the waves were beginning to break, and page 123the boat started surfing, making it difficult to manoeuvre. Already it was half full of water and Bowe had no option but to head back. Nearby he and his sons saw the trawler New fish I busy pulling in people.

As the Vivaci returned to Seatoun the woman kept mentioning her husband, but Bowe never found out if the still figure of the man they had rescued was him or not.

The Zodiac rescue craft that had got away from the Seatoun slip zoomed past the ferry, and with nobody in the vicinity, carried on, guided by the flow of debris that strung out to the east. The bigger waves in the channel cut down its speed as airport fireman Vic Cranston manoeuvred up and down the swells. Twenty to thirty minutes after passing the sunken ferry the firemen spotted two rafts, one upside down, with survivors clinging to the sides. They launched the two ten-man inflatable rafts they were carrying and held on to the painters as they floated down to those in the water.

Cranston found it hard to see what was happening to the rafts. "The waves were so big that one minute we were on one side of a wave and the rafts on the other."

However, they glimpsed two male survivors managing to haul themselves aboard and so decided to leave them and so further south, where they had spotted other people in the water. One person to get into a raft from the Zodiac was Australian Albert Donohoo, who had seen the rescue boat heading towards him. "I thought, 'I'm right now', but he didn't see me and ran right over me. I was lucky it was the side of the boat that hit me and not the middle, or the motor would have cut me to pieces. Then I saw a raft drift by and I grabbed on to it. A man gave me a lift in and then pulled in some others including a woman. I couldn't help him as I couldn't even move enough to straighten my leg which was under me." The elderly Australian was unaware that the raft had come from the Zodiac. He and the rest aboard it were later picked up by one of the tugs.

The Zodiac had moved on and was soon among a group of seven people scattered within about a hundred yards of the boat. To get them aboard the crew swooped in at a fair speed and used the movement of the water sluicing past to help flip the swimmers inboard. As they worked they could hear the anxious blowing of whistles around them. The remainder of the group were making page 124sure they weren't left behind. The whistles helped in locating survivors as quite often they were near but out of sight just over the other side of a wave. Fireman Graeme Harris remembers one elderly woman overcome by emotion and reluctant to leave her husband in the water. "Together they were too heavy to drag in so we had to more or less forcibly separate them. She thought it was a matter of women and children first and that we were going to leave her husband in the water. We made another sweep and got the man, and she was happy after that."

They finally rescued three men and four women, all suffering from exposure and shock. One young woman asked Harris where they were, and then a few minutes later asked whether they were in Christchurch yet.

Another of the women picked up by the Zodiac was Mrs Mary Lee, from Kaitaia. The raft came in the nick of time as far as she was concerned; she had become parted from her husband on leaping from the ship, and had drifted alone across to the east. She almost exhausted herself swimming and turned over on her back for a rest. At one stage she saw a tug to her right, but its screw looked lethal and she deliberately swam away from it. "Maybe by this time my thinking had become numb. I got myself tangled in some seaweed and then I was in the breaking surf. A really big roller reared up and I was powerless to avoid it. Down it came, right on top of me, and I seemed to spin like a cartwheel down and down. I touched something down there. It may have been the bottom or just something caught up in the same twirling dance. My head hurt terribly and I was trying to hold my breath. I remember seeing light before I came to on the surface, and found my lifejacket had been knocked off over my head. It was a real effort to get back into it without drowning myself. Being more buoyant, it was on the surface and, only attached at the waist, I was beneath it."

Suddenly Mrs Lee was tumbled into the Zodiac. "The men who manned this craft knew their job and did it well."

In another part of the harbour Mrs Lee's husband was also being rescued. He was picked up by the scow Portland.

The Zodiac crew were jubilant at rescuing their seven survivors. Cranston remembers being utterly thrilled. It was the first time they had ever rescued anybody in a real emergency. "It was like page 125catching your first fish." With the survivors packed in tight in their bulky lifejackets, the Zodiac returned to Seatoun.

The Wahine's number two lifeboat under fourth engineer Phil Bennett got away from the ship safely but not without some heartburning on the part of the passengers. Mrs Leslea Morgan of Petone sat on the top tier on the starboard side of the boat and watched, terrified, as it rose up and down on the swell and the two hook-like davits threatened to clout some of those aboard: "How this was avoided I'll never know. We sat scared as the Wahine loomed over us, and I thought we would never get away. They started turning the bars to get the boat moving and a girl beside me who was in a real panic got caught up in it. It threw her right over and under and I don't know how she didn't break her back. A man cut her free."

The boat finally cleared the side and started moving around, picking up people from the water. Mrs Morgan remembers the man on the helm kept saying "We've got to get the baby, we've got to get the baby."

"Apparently there was a baby in the water, but I couldn't see it. Then somebody leant over and grabbed it and it was passed to me. It was a dear little thing about fifteen months old with a coat and hat on. Somebody threw me a blanket to wrap it in and it only whimpered when I moved. The girl next to me was still frightened and I had to keep asking her to stop leaning against me. The baby was so quiet I kept looking at it to see if it was alive. The boat hung around the vicinity of the ship, never going far away as the officer directed it this way and that to pick up survivors. He was not popular with some of those on board and they had a go at him. But he just kept saying T know what I'm doing' and went on picking up survivors."

Mrs Morgan noticed that one of those picked up was an elderly woman lying calmly on her back with glasses still on. It was Australian Mrs Gladys Donohoo who had jumped off the ship along with her husband Albert. Lying on her back she had started swimming as fast as she could away from the ship, by kicking out with her feet. "I slipped off my shoes and pulled up my skirt and tried to swim to a boat I could see, but it drifted away. I looked round for my husband and saw him closer to the Wahine and called out 'Hurry up, Albert.' Thinking he hadn't heard I pulled out the whistle on the jacket and blew it to attract his attention." page 126But her husband was having trouble making headway with all the clothes he had on. He heard his wife calling out to him to get a move on and then heard someone blowing a whistle. "I thought that ass should save his breath, but later found out it was my wife." As he floated he could see a man lying on his back with a baby sitting on his lifejacket. A bit later he saw the baby plucked to the safety of a lifeboat. Used to the sea (he was at one time a surf lifesaver with Sydney's Bronte Club), he decided to move just enough to keep his circulation going. He saw an empty lifejacket in the water and worried in case it was his wife's. He remembered stretching the tape on hers when pulling her along the deck and thought she might have slipped out of it.

But Mrs Donohoo was very much in control of the situation, although she had just been swamped by a wave. "When I came up I tried to blow my whistle again but all it gave was a feeble bip. I don't know whether it was the whistle or me that gave out, but I rather think it was me." She could not see her husband any more so just swam and rested alternately. "I had no idea where I was but I hoped I was swimming towards the shore, though I may have been swimming out to the ocean." Finally she saw Bennett's lifeboat and swam towards it on her back, turning her head every so often to keep the boat in view. She did her best to protect her glasses. "I knew if I wanted to see clearly I must have them." Finally she made the boat and hung on to the side. "A woman looked over and said 'Hang on dear.' And when a big man looked over I asked him to help me. I was hauled like a sack of coals over the side."

Composing herself, Mrs Donohoo looked around at her fellow-survivors. She saw people in the middle operating the propelling gear and asked if she could help. "The big man told me to sit where I was and anyway I doubt if I would have been any help at that stage. In the centre of the boat were a crowd of people huddled in coats and sometimes I heard a cry or a whimper and realised there were children under the wraps."

The boat still stooged around on its mercy mission and some of those aboard were not too happy about it. The helmsman was being abused by some young people in the boat and as a small power boat went by a youth shouted out to it "Why don't you give us a tow?" Mrs Donohoo remembers the helmsman replying "You're quite safe. He is looking for people still in the water." page 127"I felt like cheering him, but I was so cold I felt like a puppet on a string with no control over the shivering and jerking of my body and limbs." She was sitting on the top seat and more exposed to the weather than those down below. "I remember seeing a small case at my feet and wishing I had the strength to lift it and slide down into its place, but by this time my back was giving me trouble and all I could do was sit."

The sight of people still in the water was harrowing to sixty-year-old Australian widow Mrs Florence Crawford who was in the same boat. "Rain washed the tears from my eyes and I couldn't bring myself to look around any more." She closed her eyes and just sat holding hands with another Australian widow, sixty-two-year-old Mrs Constance Martyr.

Christchurch sales-manager Frank Penman was one of those helping to pull people aboard the boat. With each rescue he remembers an Englishwoman commenting beside him, "Oh, isn't that lovely!"

The ferry Aramoana was hovering around but Penman realised she was a danger to them in the heavy swell. "She was a morale-booster, and we had quite a time persuading our passengers that we must not go near her."

Another survivor plucked from the sea into Bennett's boat was air hostess Sally Shrimpton. She had swum well clear of the Wahine but was getting a bit puffed and had decided to rest for a while. "With my feet popped up I floated around like Lady Muck," she recalls. Her contact lenses were still in place and she looked at her watch. It was 2.20 pm. "I remember thinking, 'Plenty of daylight left yet, not to worry.' I gave an odd kick to keep the circulation going and I saw a lifeboat and raft about a hundred yards away. I aimed in between them, and the lifeboat closed in first. A crewman shouted 'C'mon, swim, fella!' They thought I was a boy with my wet short hair." Sally was hauled in, and had to sit on the exposed top tier, cold and exhausted.

Aucklanders Gordon and Betty Wood, who had stepped from the ship into Bennett's lifeboat, were concerned about the wellbeing of those dragged from the water. Mrs Wood remembers that the boat was so packed that nobody could move an inch. "We couldn't help to warm them. My husband was very sick and he had to give his rowing position to someone else. We watched the last plunge of the Wahine when the huge plume of steam belched forth. I couldn't believe I was watching a real sinking. Surely not that page 128beautifully-appointed Wahine! We thought we were going to be picked up by the Aramoana, but it looked like a mountain looming out of the sea and we knew we would be smashed to death in the effort. By then a fleet of rescue craft of all shapes and sizes had come out to help. That truly was a wonderful sight and, I felt, almost an answer to prayer."

The lifeboat had drifted well astern of the sunken ferry and was getting near the treacherous seas pounding in on the eastern side. But help was at hand. After dropping his cargo of survivors and the little boy he thought was dead, Jim Toulis had headed straight out again from Seatoun. He saw the lifeboat and cruised in to throw it a line. From the boat came a rousing cheer as he secured the line. He headed for Seatoun, but when he reached the more sheltered water near the Wahine he decided to let a fishing boat tow the lifeboat in the rest of the way. He thought his own boat, being very manoeuvrable, could be of more use further over on the eastern side where there were still people in the water. Accustomed to taking his boat out fishing in the turbulent Cook Strait, he had no difficulty handling the heavy seas close to the eastern shore, but was too late. "We felt helpless. We could see people right in among the rocks but we couldn't do anything." Empty handed and with heavy hearts they turned for home.

Bennett's lifeboat, left alongside the Wahine by Toulis, had been taken in tow by the fishing boat Ho Ho which started off full-bore for Seatoun Wharf. Then the line snapped. To the rescue came Garry Walker and George Boswell, who had been cruising around for some time looking for survivors without any success. They threw the lifeboat a line and somebody yelled out "You won't be able to tow us in that." Undaunted by this apparent lack of confidence in their launch, the two secured the line and set off at a sedate four knots with the three-ton lifeboat wallowing along behind. Walker heard somebody call out "Thank God we're moving." Linked together, the two boats moved along the foreshore crowded with spectators. Then, just a hundred yards off the wharf, a speedboat zoomed in and threw the lifeboat another line. As the slack took up the lifeboat slewed to one side, endangering the launch, and hurriedly Boswell cast off. The two rescuers, rather piqued, watched the lifeboat towed the remaining yards to the wharf.

The ill-fated motor-boat from the Wahine was the only one of the four lifeboats from the ferry to come to grief. Designed to take fifty people, it was fully loaded when it moved away from the ferry's side. A few more survivors were plucked from the water including Albert Hansen, who was lucky not to get crushed when he jumped into the sea between it and the ferry.

Canterbury University student Roger Bush was also hauled aboard, but the boat was so full that he had to lie across people in it with his legs dangling over one side.

In charge was third officer Grahame Noblet, who decided not to head for Seatoun but turn and go to the tug which he could see in mid-channel. This decision, he later told the inquiry, was based on past training which stressed the danger of surf to a lifeboat. He feared that the swell rolling in on the Seatoun beach would topple the craft with possible loss of life. As he headed for the tug he manoeuvred round the pilot launch Tiakina, which had Dartford's lifeboat and a liferaft in tow.

To many aboard, the motorboat seemed overloaded. Sixty-nine-year-old Father McGIynn remembers it being so crowded that people were lying on top of one another. "I had to hold up the heads of two men so they could get some air."

Mrs May Hickman was almost squashed by those on top. She was sitting on one of the footboards in the bottom of the boat with her husband near her on one of the cross seats. A man was sitting on her shoulders and she could hardly breathe. She felt water in the boat and later told the inquiry she had the impression that it was coming through the bottom somewhere. As she sat, the water rose until it reached her chest. By then it had swamped the engine and the crowded boat just seemed to sink to sea level, but with built-in buoyancy it could not sink completely.

Father McGIynn was one of the survivors who floated off the sunken boat. "We were left floating in the water; nothing but people in lifejackets could be seen. I felt quite cool and tried to say a few aspirations but decided to save my energy and keep my mouth shut." He thought of making for Petone because he knew there were no rocks there, but just trying to avoid swallowing water page 130as the waves beat him under was hard enough so he kept praying, with his mouth shut, and hoped for the best.

When it sank, the motorboat was near the tug. The tug crew had already pulled in about a hundred survivors but the vessel was getting dangerously close to the shallows on the eastern side of the harbour. At one stage the wallowing lifeboat just bumped the tug and then drifted away about thirty feet. Suddenly and tragically a big wave turned the lifeboat completely upside down. All aboard were flung into the sea and for some of them it was the end.

Mrs Hickman was holding her husband's hand when the boat capsized. As this happened, he went limp and she thought he had been knocked out. He slid away from her grasp and she never saw him alive again. A crewman dragged Mrs Hickman back to the upturned boat and she joined the shattered survivors clinging to it. The bulk of the tug loomed nearby but it was getting too dangerous for it to stay around. Captain Sword knew there was only fifteen feet of water beneath the tug and with the big swell the boat was due to touch bottom any minute. This could have meant the loss of all on board. He shouted to a crew member to make sure the propellor was clear. It wasn't. A shocked and exhausted survivor was clinging to the rudder. When he was hoisted aboard the tug got under way but had to leave behind the motorboat with people clinging to its bottom.

Mr Samuel Folkard had been slightly stunned when the boat capsized. He came to and saw the boat about twenty yards away and his first reaction was to look for his wife. He found her and they both managed to get back to the boat. He was certain some of those previously aboard had lost their lives as he saw two or three people floating away either unconscious or dead. About three people were sitting astride the boat and they included Third Officer Noblet and steward Frank Robinson, who noticed that the bung was out of the bottom of the boat. Hanging on to the rails along the bottom of the boat was Albert Hansen. He put his feet on the lifelines round the side of the boat and hooked the stump of his right arm over one of the rails. "The stump was better to hang on with than a hand, because my hand was so cold it was hard to keep a grip."

The boat was drifting closer to the eastern shore and the giant waves washing over it were sweeping people off one by one. "I saw a woman float off who didn't seem to have a lifejacket on.

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Water was coming out of her mouth and she looked as if she was dead."

Max Nelson and his wife also managed to stay with the boat for quite a while. Six times they were swept off and finally they and the boat parted company.

Finally, after what seemed like hours to those clinging to the boat, the pilot launch Arahina came to the rescue. The launch still had the fire brigade pumps aboard, which it had been taking out to the Wahine when the call came to rescue survivors in the water. With Captain Doug Newey in charge and a crew of firemen, policemen, and some launchmen, the Arahina had sped to intercept people before they were washed ashore on the eastern shore. She had already picked up about fifteen cold and shocked survivors and as she bore down on the upturned motorboat the crew threw out lines, but only the more ablebodied of those clinging to the boat were able to grab them. Flauled aboard in this way were third officer Noblet, Robinson the steward, and McLeod the quartermaster.

Mr Folkard had by this stage managed to get astride the boat and was hanging on with one hand while with the other he held on to his wife. He later said his wife was first to notice the blue-hulled pilot boat's arrival. "She said 'There's a boat coming; it's so close it might hit us.' A chappie was shouting out for us to grab the ropes. I looked again and saw what appeared to be small strands hanging from the pilot boat. I said to my wife, 'When it comes near, just make a jump and grab the rope. We'll do this together.' " He and his wife jumped and he grabbed a rope. He felt himself slipping, and the next thing he remembers was coming to on the boat with one of the crew members taking off his life-jacket. "I immediately looked round and asked for my wife and he replied, 'Don't worry. We couldn't stay any longer because we were hitting the bottom.' I said to him, 'What about my wife,' and he told me they would be safe as there were people ashore waiting for them." Flis wife's body was later washed ashore at Eastbourne.

When the Arahina had to get out because of the shallow water there were four people left hanging on to the upturned motorboat. One was a partially paralysed Albert Flansen. Fie had been hanging on when somebody cried out, "Look out!" "I looked around and saw the bum of a boat and the next minute, whack, whack, I was jammed between the lifeboat and the boat. I felt one leg go page 132 and then the other had no feeling and I thought,. 'I've had it.' " With him were Mrs Hickman, student Roger Bush and another man.

The Arahina had been forced to leave them and at the same time Captain Newey heard from his engineer that the auxiliary engine had broken down. In view of this and the condition of some of the survivors he asked for and received permission to go to Seatoun Wharf and unload the thirty to forty survivors.

The seaborne rescue operation was by then in full swing and all along the deadly coast boats of every description were doing heroic work in saving lives. The tug Tapuhi, whose officers and crew had been on the go from early in the morning, were doing a tremendous job intercepting survivors before they slipped past into the surf-pounded shallows. The tug was astern of the Wahine when she was abandoned and within minutes her crew were plucking people out of the water. Liferafts had also been secured, and at one stage the tug had three of them alongside while its hardworking crew hefted people from them over the rail to safety.

Among those whom the tug picked up were student Jan Travaglia and his friend Joan Hodgson. Both had managed to grab hold of a crowded liferaft and hung on to the tapes around it. Jan saw the tug nearby picking up survivors. "I remember being desperate that it pick our raft up. For about fifteen to twenty-minutes we drifted. I was fully clothed and wearing a duffle coat, but the water just sapped the heat from my limbs. I kept swallowing water and felt I couldn't hang on much longer." Unable to see the shore, he had no idea which direction they were heading. The tug closed in and grateful hands grabbed the rope thrown to the raft. "A ladder was over the side and I tried to climb it but I was so cold I could barely move my arms. I was dragged aboard and Joan was with me a few minutes later." They went down below and joined the people already there. "One young girl was crying for her mother and a young woman married only a few days couldn't find her husband. A little Maori boy, about four years old, had nobody to look after him. An old lady was brought into the room and a few minutes later an old man. They were husband and wife. 'Hullo dear,' he said quietly, 'How are you' 'I'm fine, love,' she replied and they embraced. It was wonderful."

Also aboard were airwomen Jan Moles and Dot Smith, who had been plucked from the water. Down below they helped rub down page 133the little Maori boy and some other children. They comforted the young newly-wed woman who, dazed, just said "My husband is out there." Later her husband arrived.

Wellington accountant George Howatson got aboard the tug after an eventful time in liferafts. His first raft slowly sank as he lay in the bottom in about five inches of water with an Australian woman lying on top of him. A young woman was with them with a baby in her arms. Some youths in a nearby raft were urging her to give the baby to them. Reluctantly she did so and they shouted, "What's its name? We'll remember."

Suddenly the raft lurched and toppled sixty-two-year-old Howatson into the water. Another properly inflated raft, was nearby, but upside down, and he lunged for it and hung on along with the Australian woman and about six others. The raft with the youths in it was still around and he heard someone yelling, "Pull the rope, Baldy, pull as hard as you can." A rope ran across the raft and pulling it was supposed to right it. Howatson tried but was unable to and finally he and the others were hauled on to it by two men who jumped across from the other raft.

The Aramoana was about two hundred yards away, pitching and rolling in the swells. She fired out lines and they were grabbed by two rafts nearby. The ferry looked enormous and Howatson's raftload watched horrified as the other rafts were pulled close to her. The ferry heeled over so far they could see her bottom and, as she rolled back to an even keel it seemed as though she must crush the rafts and those in them. She didn't—but the survivors in the rafts had had enough and had hastily cast off.

Wellington land-agent Peter Madarasz was on one of the rafts. Separated from his wife Sue during the abandonment he was unaware she was on another raft heading for the eastern side. He and others on his raft had pulled on a line from the Aramoana until she towered about them. Ladders hung down her side but nobody was game to try and climb them. As far as Peter was concerned he wouldn't even try to climb them on a good day, never mind with the ferry rolling like a mad thing.

The three rafts were close together when the Tapuhi appeared on the scene. The survivors on the rafts were quickly helped aboard and most went down below. Mrs Edna Gatland, off one of the rafts, was hugged by her retired farmer husband Arthur who had just come off another one.

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The tug was packed to overflowing and survivors were everywhere. In the toilet, the bathroom, the captain's quarters, the boiler room and even the fiddley, a narrow iron catwalk round the top of the engine. The tug even had a priest aboard: Father McGlynn had been floating along, hoping for the best when the tug threw him a good strong line. "I grabbed it, but after a while with the effort of trying to hold it and get near the boat my energy was weakening." With the waves either tossing him away or dashing him against the side, the old priest thought his number was up: "But I managed somehow to get dragged aboard and I shall never forget the moment when I stood on that boat."

He went down below and, wrapped in a blanket, lay down on the floor of what he remembers as the galley. "I got a fit of the shivers but after a while my body seemed to generate a certain amount of heat and then all was well." Alongside him was an old lady of eighty and he was amazed to find that she was fit and well. Nearby was a young woman who had become separated from her husband and three boys. "She was weeping so we tried to console her." Another woman who came aboard was interested in one thing only—a cigarette. "I thought to myself there must be something in these cigarettes after all."

When Dunedin clerk Bill lies was hauled aboard a crewman told him to get inside. He thought he said go round the other side and struggled there to find big waves smashing over the vessel. "As I lay on the deck with the water swirling over me and out the scuppers I was violently sick. After some time I got up and struggled through a doorway into the ship. I slouched down again to be sick and was brought to my senses by the crying of an elderly lady nearby who had had her leg damaged. Sobbing, she told me she had lost her husband. I felt worried about where my wife was, but here was a poor soul in pain and I tried to comfort her by holding her hand and wrapping a blanket round her."

By this time the Tapuhi had done all that could be done without endangering those aboard. Others from the Wahine that were still in the water, apart from some the tug Taioma was looking after, were beyond the Tapuhi's reach and had to be left to the shallow-draught rescue boats thronging the area. The tug headed back to the Ferry Wharf with more than 170 survivors aboard, including four babies. She had done a fine job.

Sitting with her husband on a pile of greasy gear on the tug's page 135deck Mrs Gatland remembered it as an unforgettable sight: "Small rescue craft braving mountainous waves, all doing what they could to save as many as possible from the merciless sea."

The Taioma was dangerously close to the eastern shore, where she had been picking up people from the water and rafts. Those rescued included sixty-one-year-old Mrs Tressa Dunford of Christ-church and her husband, who had had a terrifying time since jumping off the ship. They had managed to swim to a liferaft and hung on to the side while waves washed over them. Mrs Dunford felt she was under the water most of the time. "I had swallowed a lot of water and had to gasp to get my breath before the next wave came." A crewman on the raft tried to get her aboard. "My husband called out 'Don't let her go,' and he replied T won't let her go, mate.' He hung on to me for more than one and a half hours but we didn't talk very much. Some of my thoughts were for my mother, who is eighty-four, and I wondered who would look after her if 1 didn't get out alive. I also thought of my three sons and five stepdaughters and wondered if I would ever see them again. I thought about sharks, and the mess there would be if a few got loose amongst us. Actually I love water but I like to know what is in it with me. I wasn't frightened of dying but realised that it's not until faced with death that you realise how sweet life is."

After what seemed an age Mrs Dunford heard the crewman say "Come on, Mum, we're going to get up here." Mrs Dunford looked up and thought the vessel looming above was the Wahine. "I smartly told him I wasn't going back on that, and he told me it was the tug. Then the fun began dragging me out of the water. It took three men and I thought they would pull my arms out; the pain was terrific. I weigh seventeen stone, was soaking wet and full of water." Finally aboard she saw her husband and also a crewman with a big knife. "My husband joked that he was going to stick it into me to let the water out, but he only cut our life-jackets off. I was sick and felt much better rid of the salt water. Later down below my crewman came along, put his arm around my shoulder and said 'Do you feel better now Mum?' I kissed him, thanked him very much and felt like crying but I didn't. I'll always be grateful to him. There was an Australian woman there and somehow she had managed to keep her handbag dry. She had five packets of cigarettes which she handed round and they didn't last long. She also gave me two dollars and another girl two dollars page 136and then gave my husband a dollar. But she wouldn't give us her name so we could send it back to her."

The shore was getting too close and the Taioma had to steam out into deeper water. Further south and just on the edge of the breaking sea were three liferafts. Captain Taylor neatly manoeuvred among them and the crew started pulling more people aboard. On one of the rafts was Lyver, the Wahine's radio officer, along with some seriously injured passengers and crew. Earlier the RNZVR launch Manga had rescued fifteen people, young and old, from Lyver's raft and another partly submerged one before having to cast off when the Aramoana began drifting down on them. Two of the Manga's crew had leapt overboard to help load people from the rafts on to the launch and had to be left behind. They were the second officer, Graham Brown, and carpenter Jeff Sayer, off the freighter California Star, who had volunteered for rescue work and joined the Manga at the wharves along with their captain Fred Wood and nine other crew members.

When intercepted by the tug those on Lyver's raft managed to unload Second Officer Bill Shanks, who had a broken leg, Brian Clare, the Wahine's purser, and some others. The raft rose and fell in the huge swell by the tug and Lyver considered it too dangerous to attempt to get off the elderly woman, who had a compound fracture of one leg and the ankle of the other shattered. The same applied to an elderly man who was completely helpless through shock and cold.

The water in the raft was red with blood as Lyver cast off. Remaining with him to help were the Wahine's third engineer Theo King and the California Star's carpenter Jeff Sayer. The raft drifted closer and closer to the dangerous shore before salvation arrived in the form of Barney Daniel in his 30-foot launch Tina. With masterly seamanship he and his crew of three volunteers secured the raft alongside and started rescuing those aboard. Gently the badly injured woman and unconscious man were lifted to safety. From another raft nearby the Tina's crew uplifted a Wahine crewman and an elderly woman before setting off for Seatoun Wharf.

Lyver's raft wasn't the only one the Taioma's crew had trouble rescuing people from. The President of the New Zealand Seamen's Union, Bill Martin, was one of the helpers aboard the tug and remembers one young woman so shocked by her experiences that page 137she wouldn't release her grip on some webbing. Also in the raft was steward John Ross, who was holding it against the tug by hanging on to a cargo net slung over the side of the rescue vessel. Things were getting desperate. The tug's intakes were taking in sand and kelp and it was going to have to move off without the woman. Martin shouted to Ross to come aboard but the steward replied: "I'm OK. I'll look after her," as the raft drifted off.

Ross, father of three children, did not survive. The fate of the young woman is unknown.

In imminent danger of grounding, the Taioma steamed out into the harbour with twenty-six survivors including four hospital cases, and headed for the Ferry Wharf.

Those aboard were in distinguished company: warming himself in the fiddley after being rescued from a raft was Wool Board chairman John Acland, later to be dubbed Sir John. Distinguished or not, everyone was treated the same that day.