Wreck of the S.S. Wairarapa.

Manawatu Herald, 6 November 1894, Page 2

Wreck of the S.S. Wairarapa.

■ — ♦ . . . . FURTHER PARTICULARS. Mr W. A. Tullocb, fourth officer, who bad charge of one of the ship's boats after the wreck, said, I ran to my boat (No. v), and saw it olear for the rescue of passengers. | " I got the boat swung out, put a man to stand by it, and then went to see No. G boat clear, but was un - able to get it out owing to the heavy list of the steamer to port. After a lot of trouble, and with much danger, I got a boat load of people, and we pulled away from the ship. " We kept away from the shore as, we could hear the sea breaking heavily. I had the boat afloat in two minutes, with 19 people on board, passengers and crew. " We went to work to pick up the people in the wator. T came aoross : Mr Johnston, third officer,' whose boat had been stove in, and towed his b >at till 4 o'clock in the morning, when we took the other boat's crow (10), on board, making 29 in all with us. There Were five women in the second boat with the chief engineer. Patrick Nicholson, one of the Wairarapa passenger's, said " I have been myself a sea-far-ing man for upwards for 17 year 3, and there ia no foundation for 1 the report which has got about since , we were brought to Auckland that j the officers and d;ew_ looked after

themselves, leaving passengers to do as best they could. "1 mygelf was in boat No. 5. There were the fourth officer, oue sailor, two stewards, two firemen, *■ and the second cook. That was all out of 30 all told in the boat. " The next boat, No. 8, 1 saw too. She had the third officer, one seaman, three firemen, four stewards and a butcher, out of 27 altogether." Each officer and man went to hid place at onee — that is, as far as the three boats 1 could see were concerned." " There was not the least scurry," oontinued Mr Nicholson. "They could not, however, get the starboard boats out, for the ship went at once >on her beam ends. The passengers were in awful terror, and wanted to jump into the boats in spite of the sailors. I heard the fourth officer ask the male passengers to let the women and children go first, but in spite of that some of them rushed the boats. We took into our boat many that were floating over-board." The captain's steward, Mr S. Allen, said that during the day preceding the disaster the captain never left the bridge except for a few moments at a time. Captain Mcln~ tosh had a little lunch at noon, but refrained from taking any dinner at 6 o'clock owing to his anxiety about the safety of the ship in the dense fog through which it was passing. He had a drink at 11, and another at 5, but beyond these he had not touched liquor of any kind during the whole of Sunday.