SS Wairarapa - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The SS Wairarapa was a New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

ship of the late 19th century plying the route between the Auckland, New Zealand and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. It came to tragic fame when it hit a reef at the northern edge of Great Barrier Island

Great Barrier Island

Great Barrier Island is a large island of New Zealand, situated to the north-east of central Auckland in the outer Hauraki Gulf. With an area of it is the fourth-largest island of New Zealand's main chain of islands, with its highest point, Mount Hobson, rising...

, about 100 km out from Auckland, and sunk. The death toll of around 140 people remains one of the largest such losses in the country's history. The ship was named for the Wairarapa

Wairarapa

Wairarapa is a geographical region of New Zealand. It occupies the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest...

region.

Wrecking

The Wairarapa was built in Dumbarton, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

in 1882 for the Union Steam Ship Company. Soon after launch she sailed to New Zealand

New Zealand

to become one of a small number of luxury steamers plying the route across the Tasman Sea

Tasman Sea

The Tasman Sea is the large body of water between Australia and New Zealand, approximately across. It extends 2,800 km from north to south. It is a south-western segment of the South Pacific Ocean. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, the first recorded European...

to Australia

Australia

.

The Wairarapa sailed from Sydney, Australia on 24 October 1894. The ship’s destination was the rapidly-growing New Zealand port city of Auckland

Auckland

The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...

, 2,000 miles away. As the Wairarapa rounded the top of the North Island of New Zealand four days later, fog and storms set in. However, Captain John S. McIntosh refused to slow the ship from 13 knots, nearly full speed. Fatally, the ship went off-course, possibly due to a faulty compass bearing. At the subsequent Court of Enquiry into the incident, some even suggested the ship had been steered by dead reckoning

Dead reckoning

In navigation, dead reckoning is the process of calculating one's current position by using a previously determined position, or fix, and advancing that position based upon known or estimated speeds over elapsed time, and course...

rather than using a compass at all. Whatever the cause, the ship skirted to the west of the Poor Knights Islands

Poor Knights Islands

The Poor Knights Islands are a group of islands off the east coast of the Northland Region of the North Island of New Zealand. They are located to the northeast of Whangarei, and lie offshore half way between Bream Head and Cape Brett. Uninhabited since the 1820s, they are a nature reserve and...

, not the east. As a consequence she was much closer to the mainland than the ship’s crew believed.

Shortly after midnight, the ship was wrecked near Miners Head on the northern tip of Great Barrier Island

Great Barrier Island

, off the coast of Auckland.

The hours after the wreck saw great loss of life. Many passengers could not swim and drowned in the rough seas in trying to make it to shore. One liferaft was seen floating out to sea and was never sighted again. Many men, including a large portion of the crew, took to one of the lifeboats, leaving women and children behind. A number of people took refuge in the ship’s rigging. At about 3 am Captain McIntosh jumped into the sea and was presumed drowned.

A lifeboat eventually succeeded in reaching a local community of Ngati Wai Māori based at Katherine Bay, on the western coast of the island. They were able to rescue and provide care for a number of the survivors.

Although the Wairarapa was expected in Auckland, there was no way of knowing where she may have come to grief. As the only contact with the island at the time was via weekly trips from a steamer, it was three full days until news of the shipwreck reached Auckland.

A Court of Enquiry was held after the Wairarapa disaster, and found Captain McIntosh's actions were the primary cause of the tragedy.

Protection

The wreck of the Wairarapa is scheduled for preservation in the Auckland Regional Plan: Coastal and is also protected under the archaeological provisions of the Historic Places Act 1993.

External links

http://www.sacollectables.com/cmha/volume3/pages/wairarapa.htm
Auckland Regional Plan: Coastal http://www.arc.govt.nz/arc/publications/regional-policy-and-plans/proposed-arp-coastal.cfm
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ourstuff/October.htm. A site containg further details of the wreck.

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