Taranaki Wahine survivor recalls ship's plight 50 years on

Thursday, 5 April 2018

Survivors of the Wahine disaster make it to shore in a lifeboat on April 10, 1968. Archive pic: The Dominion Post.

Former Taranaki man Jim Lawrence was one of the last to leave the Wahine before it sank in Wellington Harbour on April 10, 1968. Now living in Alice Springs, the former crewman relives how he waited below deck to evacuate as the holed ship foundered on Barretts Reef 50 years ago.

For most of the past 50 years former marine engineer Jim Lawrence has lived as far from the ocean as possible.

Lawrence was a 7th engineer on the Wahine and among the last group to leave the stricken vessel when she capsized and sank in Wellington Harbour on April 10, 1968.

While the memory of the day has remained vivid, Lawrence said he rarely dwelled on the disaster in which 53 people lost their lives unless the subject was raised.

He once gave a talk to a service club in his home town of Inglewood, Taranaki, about the tragedy, which remains the country's worst maritime disaster.

'I was reluctant to say anything and I wish I hadn't afterwards but the memories were raw and new, but I was shaking like a leaf during the talk,' he said.

Lawrence had been a crew member on the Wahine for six months after joining as a 20-year-old - inauspiciously, on Friday October 13, 1967, or Black Friday.

* Flashback: Wahine disaster 45 years on

* Wahine survivor Peter Jerram seeks powerful personal stories of maritime disaster**

The sinking left a big question mark on the ability of the Wahine in rough seas, he said.

The ship was a modern design, the largest roll on-roll off ferry in the world at the time, and its engines were capable of handling the storm which developed into a full scale cyclone Giselle with 100 knot, or 185kmph, winds at the harbour entrance, he said.

Lawrence had gone to his cabin after finishing his midnight to 4am shift after the Wahine had set sail from Lyttleton to Wellington the night before.

Two hours later around 6am, after barely an hour's sleep, he was suddenly woken by beer bottles stored under his bunk crashing into the basin in the cabin as the ship rolled as it attempted to enter Wellington Harbour in 50 knot winds.

'I was surprised at being woken up and finding I was in danger of being thrown from my bunk,' he said.

'I guess excitement was uppermost in my mind.'

His 'excitement' soon disappeared when he heard crockery smashing in the dining saloon, and the emergency alarm calling all engineers to the engine room.

'That's when I realised things were bad.'

He answered the call to 'action stations' and went to the engine room to wait for 'something to happen'.

At the engine room he was ordered to go to the aft boiler room.

Jim Lawrence was an engineer on the Wahine when it sunk in 1968. He has lived in Alice Springs since 1970.

The engine room was divided into several compartments, which were sealed by watertight doors to control fire and flooding.

When the doors shut Lawrence's only form of contact with the main control engine room from the aft boiler room was by telephone - meaning he was oblivious to the shaping events outside.

'Being in one compartment with the watertight doors for the boiler room, or generator room, meant the crew were insulated by the ship's hull from any vision, sound or smell in other compartments and the outside world,' he said.

'I was only aware of what was happening in the aft boiler room.'

The main problem was trying to staying upright as the ship rolled violently, so he followed what the more experienced crew were doing alongside him and hung off the pipes.

'The ship was rolling so badly the only way to keep upright was to hang onto pipes with your hands and let your legs dangle in the air with the motion.

'I hung from a convenient overhead pipe like a pendulum and rested my feet on the deck between rolls.

'When the ship righted itself you could stand on your feet again and give your arms a rest.'

With the ship's boilers performing as normal, Lawrence said he didn't notice the many engine speed and direction changes being carried out in the main engine room as the ship rolled, pitched and shuddered.

But it was obvious the Wahine was struggling against the 100 knot plus winds.

When the ship's movements switched from 'bouncy' to 'bumping' the crew realised she had hit the bottom and was being dragged along.

The Wahine sinking in Wellington Harbour on April 10, 1968..

There was a calm acceptance from the older, more experienced crew with him, which he didn't fully appreciate, he said.

'I didn't realise the danger we were in at the time.

'The Wahine was my first ship and I had not been in weather conditions like this since I joined.'

The first sign of trouble came when the ship started bouncing on rocks, and the steam safety valves opened, which indicated the main engines were no longer running, he said.

Within minutes a telephone call from the chief engineer Herbert Wareing ordered the machinery to be shut down and the crew to evacuate the engine rooms.

'At this time the ship was floating upright and I still had the optimism of youth,' Lawrence said.

Up until this point everything was still familiar - the machinery noises, movement, a constant 26C degrees (80F) air temperature and the crew's regular duties, he said.

As the engineers began to evacuate Lawrence saw Wareing giving each crew member encouragement.

'It was then I realised that the day mightnot end well,' he said.

Jim Lawrence was an engineer aboard the Wahine when it sank in Wellington Harbour.

With all the engineers gathered together Lawrence heard for the first time of the major damage and flooding in the forward boiler room and main motor room.

A short time later the crew were ordered back to their assigned engine rooms.

'I was the only person in the aft boiler room with orders to start up the main fuel pump, which supplied fuel to the forward boiler room.

'Once the pump was running I was busy answering phone messages to measure the depth of water in the several 'double bottom' tanks.

'Each attempt released a jet of water a few feet high showing that tank was open to the sea.'

Alone in the aft boiler room Lawrence watched the deck 'bulging up and down' under his feet and the boilers 'gently moving apart and coming together again as each wave passed.'

'It was precarious situation to be in.'

Aware of what would happen if the deck split open, or a steam pipe broke, Lawrence began to plan an escape route 'very aware of what would happen if the deck split open or a steam pipe broke'.

Much later the order came to abandon ship, he said.

'It was very difficult climbing the ladders to the upper decks, as the ship had a large list to starboard.

'We spent time throwing spare life jackets and life rafts overboard in the hope they may assist someone.

'The raft had a few engineers on it and was floating upside down and being held against the ship by the wind and slowly rotating as we passed under the bridge and lifeboat davits,' he said.

'As we reached the stern, I stepped back on over the rails to assist a group of four women I had watched fall the full width of the ship and smash into the rails near us.'

He was eventually one of the last to leave the ship, jumping into the sea and being picked up by a small dinghy after being in the water for around 15 minutes.

On board the small fishing boat was the ships captain, Gordon Robertson.

A newspaper clipping from The Taranaki Herald of the disaster reported Lawrence and two other crew were the last people left on board.

'There were four of us left including Captain Robertson and the first mate and myself and another person.

'It was very rough and we floated around in the sea until we got into this small boat…it was so narrow you could reach out your hands on either side to hold tight.'

The boat took the group to Seatoun from where they were taken to Wellington Railway Station and given a blanket and cup of tea.

He later left to spend the night in Wellington.

The next day he went to the Union Steam Ship offices to give a statement and sign off what he had lost.

He rang home and told his sister, Lorraine, as his parents were on holiday in Australia, that he was okay and had no injuries.

He was given a ticket to board the railcar to Inglewood.

'There was no counselling or advice on what to do,' he said.

Back in Inglewood he hitch hiked to his family's farm.

No one took any notice that he had just survived the Wahine sinking.

A farmer's wife gave him a lift and by the end of the trip she knew everything, and his ordeal spread quickly through the community, he said.

Former Wahine engineer Jim Lawrence with his grandchildren in Alice Springs, where he has lived since 1970.

The small township was dealing with its own tragedy - the high school's headmaster Stuart Black had been shot dead by a student on the same day as the Wahine sinking.

Lawrence had known Black as a pupil at the school and had admired him.

Like many he was shocked to hear of the senseless shooting.

The next day he went to an Inglewood pub and 'got very drunk'.

It took another two months to find work on a ship.

'The company found itself with a full crew complement but with no ship to be assigned to.'

Eventually he found a ship's position and worked a year before giving his resignation.

The after-effects of the Wahine sinking stayed with him for months.

He is thankful none of his friends in the crew were drowned.

A second Taranaki crew member, Ashley Styles, had also survived the sinking.

'I was fortunate, but I know one guy whose hair turned white overnight after he saw a mother and child drown in front of him.

'He was on a raft which turned over in the waves and he couldn't save them.

'I heard his life turned to the worse after the Wahine.

'I was never able to eat comfortably in the officers' saloon again, I would always go outside to have my meal instead.'

Small things like the ship bumping up against the wharf when docking would make him ill.

In hindsight he thinks it may have been better if he had gone back to sea the next day, and not two months later.

A year after resigning he left New Zealand to work as a mechanic on a cattle station near Alice Springs.

Now 70 years old he has retired after spending 15 years self-employed as a travel guide in the Northern Territory capital where he has lived since 1970.

The move was more to fulfil an ambition than to forget the Wahine experience, he said.

'It helped me fulfil a teenage dream to live the lifestyle described in the series of books 'Norah and the Billabong'.'

But even beyond the black stump he found he was never far from memories of the Wahine sinking.

He met a couple, who had broken down in the Outback, who told him they had been booked on the ill-fated sailing but had cancelled at the last minute.

They have been close friends ever since.

In another chance meeting Lawrence struck up a conversation with the owner of a roadhouse on the Nullarbor Plain who had been a passenger on the Wahine.

To make the meeting even more bizarre the man's business partner had once lived in Inglewood.