Elingamite
 Elingamite
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The Elingamite was a screw steamer with a size of 2,585 gross tons . It was built in 1887 and was owned by Huddart Parker. The ship sank off the north coast of New Zealand in 1902 with a considerable amount of coins and gold on board. The Elingamite wreck is a popular dive site.
Downfall
The Elingamite left Sydney early that morning on November 5, 1902, on their usual route across the Tasman Sea to Auckland . The captain was Ernest Atwood. On board were 136 passengers and 58 crew members as well as a load of 52 boxes of coins for banks in New Zealand, including 6,000 golden half-sovereigns .
On the morning of November 9th, the ship suddenly found itself in thick fog. The speed was reduced to half power. Nevertheless, the ship ran aground on West Island, one of the Three Kings Islands , about 35 nautical miles (65 km) north of Cape Reinga , the northern tip of New Zealand's North Island, and sank within 20 minutes. The people on board were able to save themselves on lifeboats and rafts, which brought the survivors to the islands, some also to the mainland. One of the six lifeboats was lost. A total of 28 passengers and 17 crew members died. The captain stayed on board until the end and was fished out of the sea by a lifeboat.
rescue
Under the command of First Officer L. Berkett, Lifeboat No. 2 was dispatched to fetch help. The boat went around the North Cape and then south to Houhora . It landed north of Mount Camel and several inmates ran to the hotel in Houhora to raise the alarm. The Evans family sent a telegram to Auckland and rescue ships were dispatched, the Penguin , Omapere and Clansman . The auxiliary schooner of the Subritzkys' fleet, the Greyhound , also took part in the search and rescue operation .
In Houhora, the residents have now sent a rider to Awanui to alert the greyhound crew they knew in the port. It was also known that the passenger ship Zealandia was going up the coast towards Australia and would soon pass Mount Camel. Members of the Wagener, Northwood, and McIntosh families took Peter McIntosh's whale boat out to sea and were able to alert the Zealandia captain , who immediately headed north at full speed. The crew of the whale boat had to drive the 25 nautical miles back to the coast on their own. The boat is on display at the Auckland War Memorial Museum today .
On the evening of November 10, 1902, Alfred Subritzky, captain of the greyhound, was alerted. However, the tide was found to be completely unsuitable for the trip. Still, the ship was pounded down the Awanui River and all sails were set, one yard to starboard and one to port, the wind straight from astern and the auxiliary engine running. Although the keel grazed the sandbank at the estuary, the ship made it out to sea.
The Greyhound first arrived at the scene of the accident and recovered three dead men who were later identified on the basis of documents as Green, Parker and C. Johnson. Subritzky wanted to hand over the bodies of the Clansman and continue the search further out at sea, but the captain of the Clansman did not want to take them over and the Greyhound returned to Awanui because the remains were beginning to rot. The three dead were buried there by the ship's crew and the Reverend Merton in an anonymous grave in the churchyard of Saint Joseph's.
Aftermath
A two-month judicial investigation into the incident began on November 28 in Auckland . Captain Atwood was found guilty of grossly negligent navigation and other offenses and his captain's license was revoked. Eight years later, the Australian Naval Station found that the Three Kings Islands were incorrectly drawn on the maps. In 1911 the Terra Nova surveyed the area and found the Three Kings a mile and a quarter mile south and a third mile east of their position on Atwood's chart. The investigation was then resumed and it was found that the ship would never have sunk if the maps had been correct. Atwood was then acquitted and later became a ship appraiser in Wellington , where he died in the 1930s.
Salvage
Over time, there have been exaggerated stories about unregistered precious metal bars on board, and the value of the coins on board has also been exaggerated. These were worth £ 17,320, or about $ 2 million in 2004. For almost 30 years the wreck of the Elingamite has been a place for adventure divers (position 34 ° 11 ′ 9.8 ″ S , 172 ° 1 ′ 53.7 ″ E ) and sometimes some of the scattered coins are still found. The late Kelly Tarlton organized several salvage expeditions to the wreck, which is now private property after several changes of ownership and an auction of the rights by the insurance company that originally insured the ship.
literature
- Bernard John Foster: Disasters and Mishaps - Shipwrecks - Elingamite . In: Alexander Hare McLintock (Ed.): An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand . Wellington 1966 ( online [accessed December 18, 2015]).
Web links
- Image at the State Library of Victoria
- Shipwreck information at the Christchurch Public Library
- Photo of the Elingamite. State Library of Victoria, archived from the original on March 19, 2012 ; accessed on August 10, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).
