I have retold an historical event about a disaster that occurred in New Zealand. This writing is about the ship that sunk in Wellington.

The Wahine Disaster.

The Wahine disaster is a shipwreck that happened here in New Zealand and it was reported to be one of the worse shipwrecks of its time.

The great wahine had left Lyttelton at 8:40 pm the night before,carrying 610 passengers and 123 of the crew. There had been storm warnings but nothing to say that the storm would get any worse than the other winds in the straight, which was well known for it’s rough sea’s. The morning of April 10th 1968 Cyclone Giselle met at Wellington Harbour with another cyclone from Antarctica and that caused it to happen.

Her lost, With so many lives taken, was the most colossal shock. The wahine was a big, modern, powerful and fine looking ship less than two years old. Caption Robertson and his senior officers, all of them highly experienced mariners had believed that she would of came through the storm nice and easy. Out of the 734 people on board only 53 people died, from drowning and exposure to the elements. Many drowned  in the rough seas including two children and several elderly passengers.

Some of the crew said that Captain Robertson was asleep while they were having difficulties while steering the Wahine in the large waves. The Wahine’s chief officer, a fully qualified master mariner, was in charge on the bridge during this time. The steering difficulty was nothing unusual, and was rectified by lowering the Wahine’s speed. The ship’s speed was reduced to half ahead to aid the Wahine’s steering, which it did. The reduction did not render steering useless. There is no factual evidence that Captain Robertson tried to steer the Wahine back into the harbour after successfully bringing her bow round and pointing out to sea. Nor did he turn her into Breaker Bay.