Title: The Wahine Disaster

Author: Max Lambert

Publication details: Reed Publishing (NZ) Ltd, 1970

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Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

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The Wahine Disaster

Chapter Two

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Chapter Two

Many of the Wahine's passengers knew bad weather was due; but to most of them it meant little more than the difference between a smooth or rough crossing. Some of them hoped it wouldn't get any rougher. In their minds the ship was already rolling more than enough.

In her forward D-deck cabin Mrs Phyllis Robertson was feeling downright miserable. She vomited, wondered why the anti-seasick tablets she had taken weren't effective, and vowed she would never go on another ship. She was to have a bad night and little sleep; at times she was so ill she thought she was going to die. Through the thin partitions she could hear people in the next cabin being sick. "One man was retching his heart out. It comforted me to know I wasn't the only one," she said later.

One deck higher Lynn Kingsbury thought he would be ill any minute. He and his wife Gillian had had a few drinks and coffee and corned beef sandwiches before going below. Lynn felt better as he lay on his back on the bed, but each time he stood up to get undressed, waves of nausea hit him. So, lying down, he pulled off his shirt and trousers, made sure the grey cardboard cuspidor in the bedside cabinet was handy, and wormed into the bedclothes. He lay there for an hour and then went to sleep—without vomiting. Gillian felt a little queasy and she couldn't get to sleep.

Others weren't feeling the least bit affected. Air hostess Sally Shrimpton was in bed before the ship sailed. Before sailing she had watched George and the Dragon, her favourite television programme, and when it ended at 8.10 pm went to her $9 single-berth B-deck cabin amidships forward of the smokeroom. It was one of the best on the ship with the exception of two nearby $10 luxury cabins. Sally washed her short brown hair and showered. She read in bed until 11 pm, then went to sleep.

Albert and Gladys Donohoo weren't feeling ill either. They were accustomed to the motion of the sea from sailing their 20-foot cabin cruiser on fishing expeditions off the coast north of Sydney Harbour. The Donohoos were in New Zealand with twenty-eight other Australians on a Government Tourist Department Tiki Tour.

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They had been in the South Island for two weeks, visiting Hanmer Springs, Franz Joseph Glacier, Lake Wanaka, Lake Te Anau, Queenstown and Mount Cook, and were to be met by a bus at the Wellington Inter-Island Terminal next morning for a week in the North Island before flying to Sydney on 17 April.

The Donohoos were enjoying the ship but were enduring one problem—a persistent squeak in the cabin. It was so noticeable that they questioned a steward, who told them cabins were squeaking all along the passageway. Mr Donohoo decided the noise was caused by the formica cabin lining rubbing at the joints. They resolved the problem by deciding Mrs Donohoo would sleep on the porthole side where the squeak was less annoying. Mr Donohoo took the other side and removed his hearing aid. When he had done that he couldn't hear anything.

The ship rode easily as she sailed north along the coast a few miles out from land. The slight pitch and roll troubling some of the passengers did not concern the officers and crew on duty. The following wind and the white-capped waves would need to get far worse to have any appreciable effect on the ship's movement. The powerful turbo-electric engines thrust her through the night gloom at 17 knots. What roll there was was minimised by the F-deck stabilisation system, a complex arrangement of automatic pumps and a tank holding 87 tons of water, pumping automatically from one side of the ship to the other to correct the roll. It was a feature which helped make the Wahine a good ship to handle and travel in.

She was the product of over seventy years' experience gained by her owners in operating the inter-island service. The Union Steam Ship Company knew what was required of a ship on the run and the service and accommodation expected by passengers. All factors involved in this were taken into account when the ship was designed. The Wahine was the largest ferry ever built for the run and she could carry more passengers than any of her predecessors—924 in 381 cabins on six decks, A to F. A number of the single and two-berth cabins were equipped with private showers and toilets.

She was designed to meet any known weather conditions at sea and was built in excess of Lloyd's requirements as far as strength was concerned. Three-quarters of the ship's hull showed above the water line, but this ratio was not unusual. Many more roll-on page 22roll-off ferries had more above the waterline than the Wahine. Her 71-foot moulded beam gave her added stability and safety. She had twin rudders, and to assist berthing had a bow rudder and lateral thrust units under water, fore and aft, to move her sideways. She was fitted with many navigational aids including radar, echo-sounding gear, radio direction-finder, and very high frequency radio equipment. Preliminary design work had been done in Wellington by the Union Company's naval architect, with a United Kingdom firm drawing the detailed plans and specifications and preparing tender documents.

Her keel was laid 14 September 1964 in the Glasgow yard of the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company and she was launched exactly ten months later by Mrs F. K. Macfarlane, wife of the chairman and managing director of the Union line. Soon after the launching the builders went into receivership. With financial help from the British Government, a new company, Fair-fields (Glasgow) Limited, was formed and completed the ferry, but there were holdups in building and outfitting. The Wahine was to have inaugurated the inter-island roll-on roll-off service with the Maori in December 1965 but she did not arrive in Wellington until 24 July 1966.

Her sleek 488-foot hull, soft nose and raked stern, made her popular in shipping circles and her very newness and high standard of accommodation made her an instant hit with the travelling public when she went on the run on 1 August 1966. Until the arrival of the Wahine, the 7,480-ton Maori was the Union company's flagship. From 1966 she played second fiddle to the new ship. The Maori had always carried cars, but until she was given a stern door and converted to roll-on roll-off operation in 1965, vehicles were slung aboard by her derricks. While the Maori was having her facelift in Hong Kong the inter-Island service was maintained by the twenty-year-old Hinemoa and the Rangatira, built in 1931. When the Wahine and Maori took up the burden the Hinemoa and Rangatira were sold to overseas purchasers.

Radio Officer Lyver was usually off watch at 11 pm but on 9 April because of the distress call from the Masa Maru he stayed on duty as he was required to do. The Maurea closed with the Japanese ship about 11.40 pm and 10 minutes before midnight told Auckland Radio she would stand by until the Masa Maru had page 23anchored. With the situation under control and normal traffic resuming, Lyver set the automatic alarm and went to his cabin. The alarm, activated by any ship or shore station transmitting a special signal, is designed to alert off-duty operators on vessels carrying only one radio officer. The signal triggers bells, in the Wahine's case on the bridge, in the radio room and in Lyver's cabin. Under international regulations the auto alarm can be used:

  • (a) to indicate a distress call or message is about to follow;
  • (b) for urgent cyclone warning; and
  • (c) to call for the assistance of other ships when someone is lost overboard and help can not be satisfactorily obtained by use of an urgency signal.

The ship was quiet as Lyver went to his cabin. The bar had closed at 10 pm and when it shut much of the reason for staying up vanished. The television in the smokeroom had been switched off too, as a reminder to passengers that the)" should be abed. Most had taken the hint and gone. A few remained in the A-deck lounge.

Colin Bower, nineteen, of Whangarei was in the lounge. He and Paul Field, sixteen, also of Whangarei, had come up on the train from Invercargill after a South Island working holiday and had booked a cheap $4.50 cabin in the nose of the ship on E-deck. Colin and Paul had walked the decks after the ship passed Godley Plead. They thought the sea was rough and had difficulty standing when near the bow or stern. "The rising deck made us feel as if we were being forced down," Colin recalled later, "and when it went down we felt weightless." He decided that sleeping in the bowels of the ship would be impossible, so he bedded down with a couple of blankets in the lounge. "It was one of the least rough places on board." Paul, a little more settled in his stomach, went below.

Australian Sue Smith was with others on the enclosed section of the promenade on C-deck. She had felt shut in in her cabin when she went down from the smokeroom and, on the verge of seasickness, had returned to the deck.