Wahine 10 April 1968

SHIP’S TELEGRAPH MARITIME NEWS FROM AROUND THE PORT OF LYTTELTON Editor – Clive Keightley PO Box 123 Lyttelton 8841 New Zealand Phone (03) 3288954 Mobile 0276664343 Email [email protected] SPECIAL EDITION Newsletter Number 3/18 14 May 2018 TEV WAHINE 10 APRIL 1968 FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK On 10 April 1968 I was serving as a P&O Radio Officer on the ss Talamba, a tanker operated by Trident Tankers, which was part of the P&O Group. The ship carried crude oil between the Persian Gulf and Europe and because at the time the Suez Canal was a war zone and closed to shipping our voyages took us via the Cape. We did not have television and our only contact with the outside world, apart from ship’s business, would have been to listen on the radio to the BBC overseas service. At the time I do not remember even being aware of the Wahine tragedy which took Page 1 of 15 place on the other side of the world. I had never been anywhere near New Zealand, a country I had learnt about during my geography studies at school, which was down under somewhere near Australia. In early 1970 I signed off a ship in New York and flew across the world to join a ship in Wellington, New Zealand. I was in my twenties and to me New Zealand was a strange place. Pubs served beer in Jugs and if you went into a corner shop, newspaper was used, if you asked for a wrapped loaf! At least they drove on the same side of the road as the UK unlike New York. As we sailed out of Wellington I remember seeing what must have been a floating crane lifting large pieces of steel painted green from under the water. I was on the ship’s bridge at the time and I asked one of the other officers what the crane was doing with those chunks of steel. I was told that it was the remains of a ferry which ran aground on a reef inside the harbour in 1968. Although I settled in Australia, prior to moving to New Zealand in 2011, I took a great interest in the Union Company and so over the years made an in depth study of the Wahine disaster. Fifty years after the sinking of the Wahine it is therefore appropriate that I dedicate one of my Ship’s Telegraph Newsletters to commemorate the tragedy. TEV WAHINE – 10 APRIL 1968 Union Steamship Company House Flag Page 2 of 15 TEV WAHINE INTRODUCTION TEV Wahine was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Govan, Glasgow, Scotland. Plans were made by the Union Company in 1961, and her keel was laid on 14 September 1964 as Hull No 830. Built of steel her hull was completed in 10 months, and she was launched on 14 July 1965. Her machinery, cargo spaces and passenger accommodation were installed in the following months and she was completed in May 1966. She left Greenock, Scotland for New Zealand on 18 June 1966 and arrived in Wellington on 24 July 1966. She sailed on her maiden voyage to Lyttelton one week later on 1 August. Her dimensions were 488 feet (149m) long with a beam of 71 feet (22m). Wahine had a grt {gross registered tonnage) of 8,943.78 (increased to 8948 grt on 28 April 1967) and at the time was the Union Company’s largest ship and one of the world’s largest passenger ferries. The power plant was turbo-electric transmission, with four boilers supplying steam to two turbo-alternators that drove the twin main propellers giving her a top speed of 22 knots. The ship also had stern and bow thrusters for manoeuvring her sideways when berthing. She also had stabilisers that halved the amount she rolled and the frequency with which she did so. The hull was divided by twelve watertight bulkheads into fourteen watertight compartments. The lifeboat compliment was eight large fibreglass lifeboats, two 26 foot motor lifeboats each with a capacity of 50 people, six 31 foot standard lifeboats each with a capacity of 99 people. Additionally the vessel was fitted with 36 inflatable rafts each with a capacity of 25 people. On a normal crossing the crew compliment was 126: in the Deck Department, the Master, three Deck Officers, one Radio Officer and 19 seamen. The Engine Department had 8 Engineer Officers, 2 Electricians, 1 donkeyman and 12 general Page 3 of 15 workers. In the hotel department there were 60 stewards, 7 stewardesses, 5 Cooks and 4 pursers . CAPTAIN GORDON ROBERTSON Page 4 of 15 The Wahine’s Master in command of the ship on 10 April 1968 was 57 year old Captain H G Robertson, Hector Gordon Robertson was born in Wellington on 4 February 1911, the second of six children and his parent’s oldest son. The name of “Hector“ was never used. He was always called Gordon by his wife Anne and by his brothers and sisters. To his seagoing colleagues, however he was known as “HG” or “Hector Gordon”, and is still remembered today by these names. Gordon Robertson first went to sea in 1927 at the age of 16 as a ship’s boy aboard the Union Steam Ship Company’s Trans – Tasman passenger liner Moeraki. He was an ordinary seaman aboard the 4.505 ton Manuka built in 1903 and sister ship to Moeraki, when she was wrecked off Long Point on the night of 16 December 1929 while on passage from Bluff to Dunedin. After this Gordon Robertson worked aboard tramp steamers and freighters on the trade routes between New Zealand and Great Britain, getting the sea time needed before obtaining his second mate’s certificate at Southampton in 1933. Three years later he was back in New Zealand waters, having joined the Holm Shipping Company which operated a fleet of small ships around New Zealand coastal ports. Then on 19 August 1938 Gordon Robertson was appointed Third Officer of the Union Steam Ship Company’s Waipahi, a 1,783 ton cargo steamer also working the coastal trades. He made such a favourable impression with his new employer that on 8 January 1940, only 17 months after joining the company, he was appointed Third Officer of the Rangatira on the Wellington-Lyttelton Steamer Express Service. Two months later, on 17 March 1940, he was transferred to the company’s flagship, the 17,491 ton Aorangi on the Trans Pacific Service. While serving aboard the Aorangi as Junior Third Officer, Gordon met Anne Marie Robertson, a Canadian passenger with the same surname. They were married in Sydney on 15 May 1940. Gordon Robertson spent the war years as second officer then chief officer aboard a variety of Union Steam Ship Company Ships. After going on to serve as Chief Officer on the Trans Tasman liner Monowai then the Wellington- Lyttelton Express Steamer Hinemoa Gordon Robertson was promoted to master on 15 May 1952. His first command was the 942 ton cargo vessel Kanna. When Captain Meatyard, Wahine’s regular Master, retired on 30 October 1966, he handed over command to the man who, because of his exceptional record, had been promoted over other masters, older and more senior, fifty-five year old Captain HG Robertson. He was to be Wahine’s Master for the next 17 months and on the day she was lost. Appointment to the Union Company’s best ships was not a case of having the right friends in Head Office or presenting the Marine Superintendent with a bottle of Scotch at Christmas. Appointments as master were judged on the meticulous record the Company kept on how much a master had cost in lost profits through damage to ships and wharves. While some masters had cost the Company Page 5 of 15 large sums of money Captain Robertson, during the years he had been master of 17 ships, had cost the Company nothing. Captain Robertson was therefore a highly competent Master, a very good ship handler and had exceptional seamanship skills having worked his way up from Deck Boy. He was also a very caring person. Every morning when the Wahine was in Lyttelton, it was his habit to leave the officers’ dining saloon after breakfast and walk aft to the seamen’s mess room, and standing just inside the door he would ask the men seated at their mess tables if all was well and if any of them needed his help. It was a deeply appreciated gesture from a man they saw as one of their own. In late February 1968 Gordon Robertson and his wife Anne purchased a new much larger home in Maungaraki on the western hills of the Hutt Valley. Settlement date, when they would relinquish their old home and take possession of the new home was Friday 5 April 1968. Captain Robertson applied for a week’s annual leave beginning the following Monday 8 April, so that he and his wife could move in and unpack, but no master having the necessary familiarity with TEV Wahine was available to relieve him and so his request for leave was declined. Had somebody else been available, and with no disrespect to that master’s professional ability, the outcome on 10 April might have been considerably worse. He slept just one night in his new house, Sunday 7 April before returning to the Wahine for her normal weekly timetable with the sailing to Lyttelton the following day Monday 8 April 1968.

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