On the evening of 9 April 1968, Wahine departed from Lyttelton for a routine overnight crossing to Wellington, carrying 610 passengers and 123 crew.
Weather conditions
In the early morning of Wednesday, 10 April, two violent storms merged over Wellington, creating a single extratropical cyclone that was the worst recorded in New Zealand's history. Cyclone Giselle was heading south after causing much damage in the north of the North Island. It hit Wellington at the same time as another storm that had driven up the West Coast of the South Island from Antarctica.[13] The winds in Wellington were the strongest ever recorded there. At one point, the wind reached 275 km/h and in one Wellington suburb the wind ripped off the roofs of 98 houses. Three ambulances and a truck were blown onto their sides when they tried to go into the area to rescue injured people.
As the storms hit Wellington Harbour, Wahine was making her way out of Cook Strait on the last leg of her journey. Although there had been weather warnings when she set out from Lyttelton, there was no indication that storms would be severe or any worse than those often experienced by vessels crossing Cook Strait.[13]
Grounding
At 05:50, with winds gusting at between 100 and 155 km/h,[2] Captain Hector Gordon Robertson decided to enter the harbour.[14] Twenty minutes later the winds had increased to 160 km/h, and Wahine lost her radar. A huge wave pushed her off course and in line with Barrett Reef. Robertson was unable to turn the ship back on course, and decided to keep turning around and back out to sea.
For 30 minutes Wahine battled into the waves and wind, but by 06:10 she was not answering her helm and the engines had stopped responding.[15] At 06:40, the ship was driven onto the southern tip of Barrett Reef,[2] near the harbour entrance less than a mile from shore. She drifted along the reef, shearing off her starboard propeller and gouging a large hole in her hull on the starboard side of the stern, beneath the waterline. Passengers were told that the ferry was aground but that there was no immediate danger.[2] They were directed to don their lifejackets and report to their muster stations[2] as a routine "precautionary measure".
The storm continued to grow more intense. The wind increased to over 250 km/h and Wahine dragged her anchors and drifted into the harbour. At about 11:00, close to the western shore at Seatoun, the anchors finally held.[2] At about the same time the tug Tapuhi reached Wahine and tried to attach a line and bring her in tow, but after 10 minutes the line broke.[2] Other attempts failed, but the deputy harbourmaster, Captain Galloway, managed to climb aboard from the pilot boat.[2]
Throughout the morning, the danger of the ship sinking seemed to pass as the vessel's location was in an area where the water depth did not exceed 10 m, and the crew's worst-case scenario was the clean-up once the vessel either arrived in Wellington or had grounded in shallower water. There was indication that the ship would even sail again that evening as usual, albeit later than scheduled while the damage done by the reef was repaired.
'Abandon ship' and foundering
Around 13:15, the combined effect of the tide and the storm swung Wahine around, providing a patch of clear water sheltered from the wind. As she suddenly listed further and reached the point of no return, Robertson gave the order to abandon ship.[2] In an instance similar to what had occurred during the sinking of the Italian passenger liner SS Andrea Doria off the coast of New England in 1956, the severe starboard list left the four lifeboats on the port side useless: only the four on the starboard side could be launched. The first starboard motor lifeboat, boat S1, capsized shortly after being launched.[2] Those aboard were thrown into the water, and many were drowned in the rough sea, including two children and several elderly passengers.[2] Survivor Shirley Hick, remembered for losing two of her three children in the disaster, recalled this event vividly, as her three-year-old daughter Alma drowned in this lifeboat. Some managed to hold onto the overturned boat as it drifted across the harbour to the eastern shore, towards Eastbourne.
The three remaining standard lifeboats, which, according to a number of survivors, were severely overcrowded, did manage to reach shore. Lifeboat S2 reached Seatoun beach on the western side of the channel with about 70 passengers and crew, as did Lifeboat S4, which was severely overcrowded with over 100 people. Heavily overcrowded Lifeboat S3 landed on the beach near Eastbourne, about 5 km away on the opposite side of the channel.
