Penguin (ship)
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
The Penguin was a passenger ship put into service in 1864 by the New Zealand shipping company Union Steam Ship Company , which was used for passenger traffic between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. On February 12, 1909, the ship sank in stormy weather in the Cook Strait in front of the entrance to Wellington Harbor after it collided with an underwater rock. Of the 102 passengers and crew members , only 30 survived, with 72 fatalities, the sinking of the Penguin is New Zealand's worst shipwreck of the 20th century.
The ship
.jpg)
The steamship Penguin was built in 1864 by the Tod and MacGregor shipyard in Partick , a district of Glasgow , for the British shipping company G. & J. Burns. It was 67.5 m long and 8.7 m wide and had a single chimney and a single propeller . The iron- built steamer was originally 749 GRT, but was later enlarged.
The Penguin originally shuttled between Glasgow and Liverpool and was considered one of the fastest and most reliable steamers in the Irish Sea . In 1879, the New Zealand shipping company Union Steam Ship Company bought the Penguin , which they used as a ferry for domestic traffic between New Zealand's main islands. The ship now regularly shuttled between Nelson and Picton on the South Island and Wellington on the North Island.
Downfall
On Sunday, February 12, 1909, the Penguin left Picton on a clear day for another crossing to Wellington. The ship had to cross the Strait of Cook Strait . Captain Francis Edwin Naylor, a former port captain and pilot who had been with the shipping company for twelve years, was in command . There were 61 passengers and 41 crew members on board, a total of 102 people. For some time the penguin was accompanied by the famous dolphin Pelorus Jack . Captain Naylor wanted to avoid the dangerous reefs and rocks in the Tongue Point area . When the ship reached the open waters of the Cook Strait around 9 p.m., a violent storm set in . Due to the storm, darkness and heavy rain , it was impossible to see land and steer the ship accordingly.
There were also strong winds from the south. Since the Pencarrow lighthouse at the entrance to Wellington Harbor could not be made out at 10 p.m. on schedule, Captain Naylor ordered two changes of course in quick succession to get the ship out of the storm and the possible danger zone. He wanted to go back to the open sea and away from the rocky coast until the weather improved. He later stated that due to the extremely limited visibility, he could only rely on his own assessment of the situation.
The ship was already closer to land than expected. In complete darkness, the Penguin was shaken by a roaring impact at 10:02 p.m. off Cape Terawhiti as it ran on the underwater cliffs of Thoms Rock. The high waves tore the ship back into the water, so that water could immediately penetrate through the holes in the hull . After it became apparent that the pumps would not save the ship, the evacuation of the Penguin began.
Passengers and crew initially showed no signs of panic and behaved calmly and disciplined, given the circumstances. The lifeboats , of which the Penguin had enough for everyone on board, were manned with women and children, but only two could be launched in the short time. The first was hit by a huge wave and sank; none of the inmates survived. The second boat also capsized in the heavy seas. The ship was blown up after the cold sea water reached the boiler rooms and caused the heated steam boiler to explode .
24 people managed to save themselves on wooden rafts and reached the coast hours later. Six more survived in the second boat after it was raised. Shepherds from a nearby farm were the first to arrive at the scene of the accident. The total of 30 survivors, 16 crew members and 14 passengers, were brought to Wellington on horseback across the Karori River. At sunrise, the first debris washed ashore at Cape Terawhiti and Sinclair Head.
A commission of inquiry that followed the sinking of the Penguin was of the opinion that errors in the navigation of the ship on the part of Captain Naylor had led to the accident. Naylor, who survived, was charged with negligence and critical mishaps regarding the course changes. He was suspended from duty for a year. However, he was also credited with doing everything in his power to save as many lives as possible. In retrospect, however, it was also realized that the storm, the strong currents and the high tide were largely responsible for the accident, as these factors had significantly distracted the ship from its course.
Just a few miles from where the Penguin sank ( 41 ° 18 ′ 25.2 ″ S , 174 ° 30 ′ 12.6 ″ E ), the Wahine ferry crashed in 1968, killing 53 people.
The victims
47 passengers and 25 crew members were killed, including all eleven children on board. Of the 20 women, the pregnant passenger Ada Hannam from Picton was the only one who survived, trapped under a capsized lifeboat. She had lost her husband and four children. She was declared a heroine for helping save the youngest survivor, Ellis Matthews.
The two stewardesses of Penguin , Alice Jacobs and Annie Hope, were praised by survivors and press. The two women handed out life jackets , talked reassuringly to the passengers and helped them board the boats. Both perished. People were particularly touched by the fate of the McGuire siblings. The boy and three girls, aged five to twelve, had lived in a children's home for some time and were on the way on the Penguin to live again with their widowed father, who had remarried just a few days earlier.
Rescue workers searched the rocky stretches of coast and, with the help of boats and rafts, recovered numerous corpses that were floating in the surf or lying on the cliffs. All but 13 fatalities were found. They were shipped to Wellington from the salvage ship Terawhiti and brought ashore at Miramar Wharf Pier. A public funeral was held in Wellington on February 16, 1909. On the occasion of this event, work in the city was stopped for a day. The accident hit the city particularly hard, as many passengers came from there and the shipping company was based there. Public life came to a temporary standstill.
Most of the Penguin victims were buried in the Roman Catholic section of Karori Cemetery in Wellington. The site is open to visitors. Visitors have the opportunity to follow the Penguin Self Guided Walk through the site. This is a signposted path that leads through the cemetery and points to the graves of the penguin passengers, which have been specially marked . The course takes between 90 minutes and two hours.
Commemoration
On the 100th anniversary of the disaster, the incumbent Mayor of Wellington, Kerry Prendergast, inaugurated a plaque in Tongue Point near the scene of the accident.
literature
- Bruce E. Collins. The Wreck of the Penguin . Steele Roberts Limited, Wellington, 2000
- Gavin John McLean. Shipwrecks and Maritime Disasters . Grantham House, Wellington, 1991
- Bruce Morris. Darkest Days . Wilson & Horton, Auckland, 1987
Web links
- Summary of the accident
- SS Penguin Sinking to be Remembered on South Coast . Wellington City Council, February 9, 2009, archived from the original February10, 2013; accessed on January 18, 2016(English, original website no longer available).
- Entry in the Miramar Ship Index
- Passenger and crew list of the last trip
- New Zealand Disasters (description of the accident in bullet points)
- Penguin Self Guided Walk - Karori Cemetry Heritage Trail . (PDF 349 kB)Wellington City Council, archived from the original ; accessed on January 18, 2016(English, original website no longer available).
- OVER 50 LIVES LOST IN PENGUIN WRECK ( New York Times report of February 15, 1909)
Individual evidence
- ↑ SS Penguin († 1909) . Wreck site , accessed September 28, 2014 .