The Reporter
THE GREAT BARRIER DISASTER.
The evidence so far taken at the magisterial inquiry into the loss of the steamer Wairarapa has served to accentuate the feelings of sorrow experienced when the news was first flashed over the wires from Auckland. The loss ’of life, it appears, was rather less than at first stated, being now set down at 113 persons, but the details of the scene which followed the fatal crash upon the rocks show that it was most heartrending. The circumstances leading up to it were set forth by the first witness called, Mr Moyes, chief officer. He stated that after, they sighted the North Cape at 7.40 on Sunday morning the vessel proceeded at full speed through a heavy fog. Sometimes they could not see so much as a mile ahead, and at best only about two miles. Judging from the ■ log, which the first officer considered accurate, the Wairarapa was abreast of Cape Brett at 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. he was relieved, but did not turn in, feeling ancons, until 11.30. During the day the captain was nearly always on the bridge. The officers consulted with him on the advisability of slackening* the speed of the vessel. He replied that he would go on as far as the Hen and Chickens and then slow down, At 10 p.m., when the ship was abreast of these islands, the captain did not slow down as he had promised. All the officers asked him to blow the horn, but he refused, as he said he would disturb the passengers. . . . ’The captain was perfectly sober, and witness had never noticed him the worse of liquor during the time he had been with him. W. H. Johnston, third officer, stated that on Sunday the captain was particularly attentive to his duties, and seldom left the bridge. Between 9 and 10 the captain expected to be midway between Cape Brett the Poor Knights. The ship was wellfounded in sounding apparatus, which was ready for instant use whenever the captain chose to take soundings. Witness could not account for the alteration in the course. Dr Coughtrey was the captain’s medical adviser. When the steamer was laid up at Port Chalmers the captain went to Lake Wakatipu, and the remark was passed by several when he came back that he did not look so strong as he had looked. The provisions of article 12 of the regulations had not been complied with, neither was article 13, re moderation of the speed in a fog. When the second officer relieved witness at midnight he remarked, in the presence of the captain, that they must be near the Hen
and Chickens. The captain replied “ What nonsense.” Witness did not know of any special instructions given to the captain to be in time for the Christchurch races this week. When the ship went ashore there was 48 hours to spare. The captain was a very temperate man. He had never known him to touch opium or morphia, or to show the effects of liquor. He was a strong-minded man, but his nerves may have been shaken by his recent illness. He had no reason to believe the captian’s mind had given way under pressure of any sort. Between eleven and twelve o’clock witness went to the captain and told him the ship was logging fourteen knots. The captain said it was ridiculous that she should be doing it. In view of the various rumours which have been circulated concerning the late Captain Mclntosh, Dr. Coughtrey, of Dunedin, with the consent of his relatives, thinks it only fair to the late captain’s memory to let the following facts be known : Captain Mclntosh before starting his last voyage to Sydney had only just resumed command after being seriously prostrated by three attacks of influenza, which disabled him from all duty for a month. When he brought the Wairarapa from Sydney to Dunedin, and immediately after arrival, on the 25th September last, he consulted Dr. Coughtrey, complaining chiefly of great nervous prostration, and how unnerved - he felt after the influenza. The doctor ordered him to rest from duty, and if he was not better by the time the Wairarapa resumed her running to obtain longer leave. The doctor did not again see him, but understood, though improved, he was not quite recovered, and he suspects, from what he knows personally and by experience in travelling with the late captain, that he had a return wave of nervous prostration, which may have affected his judgment, and possibly be the true explanation of the late sad accident. Captain Mclntosh (says the Welling! m Post) was an exceedingly efficient and popular officer. He came out to this colony as a passenger in the ship Wellington about 1874, having been persuaded to do so by his mother and married sister, then residing at Dunedin. He joined the company’s service first as second officer, and his first command was the Maori, then about the smallest of the fleet. From that time he has risen steadily, having command in succession of many of the smaller vessels, and of the Hero, Te Anau, and various others. Though some 65 years of age, he was unmanned. A splendid deep-sea sailor he was —like many other excellent seamen —always anxious on the coast, and never took off his clothes, from the time he
touched one extremity of the colony till he left the other, as Jong as his vessel was under steam, maintaining a constant vigilance and a constant tension. The Rev. J. H. MacKenzie, who was personally acquainted with the late Captain Mclntosh,.informs the RTelson Colonist of a remarkable event in the life of the late captain. A few years ago Captain Mclntosh left on a trip to Scotland in order to fulfil an engagement made twenty one years before under the following circumstances: —One day three friends met at an .inn in the Highlands, and after dinner it was agreed between the three that on that day 21 years after they would, if, alive meet in the same spot. All three lived to keep the engagement, and after dinner was finished they were iinformed by the landlord that the dinner had been cooked by the same man who had performed a like office for them 21 years before. Mr Tuckett, a survivor, says that after the ship struck he made for the poop, where two (seamen were trying to lower a boat. A group of women there were crying’ out for the boat to be lowered, but the seamen said they were waiting orders, and these, Tuckett says, he never heard. He made to lower the boat and was ordered back. A considerable time elapsed, and still the boat was not lowered. Then the seas swept the deck and carried him and the others overboard. He was repeatedly knocked under water by horses, dead bodies and wreckage, and was only taken into the boat when at his last gasp. The disaster (according to the Post) was presaged in a dream which occurred last Friday night week—two nights before the occurrence —to a lady residing in Pirie street, Wellington. It happens that a bosom friend of the lady’s husband was on board the Wairarapa. In the dream she distinctly had the idea that the steamer had been wrecked somewhere, and that she saw the passengers in the water, some of them being hand in hand. For two days she said nothing about the matter, fearing to alarm her husband, but she told him of her vision on Monday, before the anxiety about the vessel being overdue arose. Mr Jefcoate, of Oteramika, states that the Miss Pilcher referred to as one of the passengers who transhipped from the German liner at Sydney to the Wairarapa, and who is among the drowned, was on her way to join his family, being about to be married to a cousin of his here. An elderly woman named Martin, who was drowned, is believed to be the mother of Mr 0. W. Martin, of Riverton. She had intimated her intention of visiting the colony some time ago. Mr G. Chick, hotelkeeper, of Port Chalmers, who was drowned, was known in Otago, he having held a large farm not very far from Waipapa Point, Avhere the Tararua was lost thirteen and a half years ag’o. Among those lost were Mr and Mrs Secular, of Dunedin, and their two daughters. Of them Mr Chamberlain, who was rescued, says : —I. cannot find words sufficient to praise the way in which the Misses Scoular behaved. All the time their conduct was really heroic. If some of the men could have taken a pattern from the girls, and from the ladies generally, it would have been well. A splendid act of unselfishness was performed by Miss McQuaid, one of the stewardesses. She had served out the life-belts, and reserved one for herself, when a little child came up and in its teiror hid its head in her dress. After soothing it for a moment Miss McQuaid divested herself of the belt and fastened it round the child. The next moment both were swept away and drowned.
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Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 33, 10 November 1894, Page 5
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1,530The Reporter Southern Cross, Volume 2, Issue 33, 10 November 1894, Page 5
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