TEV Wahine

1968

Wellington Harbour, Cyclone Giselle, Barrett Reef Location: Wellington Harbour entrance, New Zealand · Coordinates: 41.33°S 174.84°E · Casualties: 53 · Survivors: 681 · Depth: 12 m · Cause: storm · grounding — Caught by the tail of Cyclone Giselle at the entrance to Wellington Harbour on the morning of 10 April 1968. 160-knot wind gusts and a following sea drove her onto Barrett Reef. Wind and tide pushed her the length of the harbour before she capsized in Seatoun. · Fate: salvaged · scrapped · Type: roll-on/roll-off ferry · Union Steam Ship · Tonnage: 8,944 tons · Crew: 125 · Flag: New Zealand · Launched: 1966 New Zealand inter-island ferry, Lyttelton to Wellington. Caught by the remnants of Cyclone Giselle at the entrance to Wellington Harbour on the morning of 10 April 1968, with 160-knot gusts through the Cook Strait. Driven onto Barrett Reef, lost steering, carried the length of the harbour by wind and tide, and capsized in Seatoun shortly after abandonment. 53 dead of 734 aboard. New Zealand's worst modern maritime disaster; the 53 names still headline the plaque at the Wellington waterfront. The Vessel The TEV Wahine was a New Zealand turbo-electric passenger ferry of the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand, built at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company yard at Glasgow between 1965 and 1966 and commissioned on 22 June 1966. She was 149 metres long, 8,948 gross tons, and powered by turbo-electric propulsion (steam turbines driving electric generators that in turn drove the propulsion motors) - a relatively sophisticated propulsion arrangement for a 1960s passenger ferry. Her accommodation comprised approximately 836 passengers (cabins and public-lounge accommodation) plus a crew of 125, plus 200 road vehicles in her lower-deck vehicle bay. Wahine was the newest and most sophisticated vessel of the Union Steam Ship Company's Cook Strait ferry service: the overnight ferry service between Wellington (on the North Island of New Zealand) and Lyttelton (the port of Christchurch on the South Island). The Cook Strait ferry service was a critical piece of New Zealand national transport infrastructure; approximately 1 million passengers annually used the service for inter-island travel. The specific operational and design context of Wahine was the continuing Cook Strait weather hazards. Cook Strait is one of the most meteorologically hazardous narrow waterways in the world: it connects the Tasman Sea (west) with the Pacific Ocean (east), and the prevailing westerly wind systems combine with the strait's funnel effect to produce extreme wind conditions approximately 1 The Disaster Wahine attempted to enter Wellington harbour in the extreme weather conditions. The specific navigational challenge was the Wellington Harbour entrance: a narrow channel approximately 1,000 metres wide, with hazardous reefs on both sides. The combination of extreme wind conditions (substantially exceeding Wahine's operational limits), restricted visibility, and the narrow channel made the entrance extremely hazardous. At approximately 06:41 on 11 April 1968, TEV Wahine grounded on the Barrett Reef at the northern entrance to Wellington Harbour. The specific grounding was at approximately 12 knots speed; the rock formation struck was a submerged pinnacle of rock approximately 3 metres below the water surface. The grounding caused substantial damage to Wahine's hull. Her starboard propeller and shaft were immediately destroyed; her starboard rudder was damaged; her bottom hull plating was ruptured at multiple points; progressive flooding began immediately in the ship's double-bottom ballast tanks and central cargo compartments. Captain Robertson's specific operational response was complex. The immediate decision was whether to attempt to continue into the harbour, or to anchor and await rescue. The continuing extreme weather conditions made anchoring substantially hazardous; however, the ship's damaged condition made continued navigation also substantially hazardous. The specific decision was to attempt to navigate further into the harbour under the ship's remaining operational