THE BRIGANTINE HELEN.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 581, 29 April 1876, Page 3

THE BRIGANTINE HELEN.

This inquiry was hell at the Custom House, Ly ttelton, yesterday afternoon, before A. Rose, Esq, collector of customs. Richard Cox sworn said —I was an ordinary seaman on board the brigantine Helen on her voyage from Newcastle, N.S.W., to Napier, I do not know her official number or exact tonnage ; it was, I think, 130 tons. On the llth April the vessel was wrecked. For two or three days previously it had been blowing hard. The catastrophe occurred off the East Cape, a little to the south of it. The weather that day was tolerably fine, but the captain foreseeing bad weather resolved to seek shelter under the lee of the Cape. When we were about two miles off the land the vessel struck something; I believe a rock, and after being at the pumps a quarter of an hour or more, we had to take to the boats, the vessel making water so rapidly that we thought she wou'd go down. The vessel struck about 1 30 p.m. I was in the forecastle at the time,it being my watch below; the two boats reached the shore in safety with all hands, eight in all. I have never been on the coist before, and do not know any of the land marks. I have been at sea two years, a year and a half as boy, and Bix monts aa nrdina-y seaman. The vessel was loaded with coal. At the time the vessel struck the captain was on the poop. He said afterwards he did not know there were any rocks near where the Helen struck. We were only about a quarter of an hour from the time the vessel struck till we escaped in the boats. She sank about half an hour after we left her. We landed at a place called Horari, between Hicks' Bay and the East Cape, and the natives gave us shelter and food. Two days afterwards the I schooner Marion put into Hicks' Buy, and the captain offered to take two of us to Lyttelton, John McDermot and myself

came down in her. The captain went overland to Napier ; his name was John Hair. I believe that Messrs Watt Brothers, of Napier, were the owners of the vessel. I do not know if either the vessel or cargo were insured. I do not remember how her head was pointing when she struck, nor which direction the wind came from, but it was blowing towards the land. 'Our clothes were all saved, and the chronometer and ship's papers I believe McDermot, the cook and steward, who came down with me, was ordered to pack them up. I have Dot seen McDermot since our arrival here. All sail but the mainsail was on the ship when she struck the rock. The yards were squared to back the vessel off the rock, and she then gradually sauk.