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White Wings Vol I. Fifty Years Of Sail In The New Zealand Trade, 1850 TO 1900

The Electra

page 210

The Electra.

Sailing Through Icebergs.

While she could not be called a fast sailer, the Electra, a Shaw, Savill ship of 668 tons, which ran to New Zealand between '66 and '79, averaged better passages than most other vessels of her size. Between '66 and '73 she made seven voyages to Wellington, none of which exceeded 100 days. On four of these Wellington passages the ship was in command of Captain Sellers, who had brought out thousands of passengers,
The Ship Electra.

The Ship Electra.

and was well known throughout the colony. Before being in the Electra he had the Bombay and Zealandia and other ships. In 1882 he was appointed ships' husband in London.

the Electra made her first voyage to Nelson, arriving there on the 30th March, 1863. Captain Woodgate reported that during a heavy gale an apprentice was lost overboard, and William Hutcheson, while skylarking, hanging on to the fore port brace, fell overboard, and was drowned.

During the '69 voyage to Wellington the Electra saw ice in the Indian Ocean—a thing Captain Sellers said he had never experienced before. On this occasion the vessel when in 64 degrees 10 minutes S. and 121 degrees 30 minutes E. sailed through bergs for ninety miles, passing in all fifty-three, most of which were from one hundred to two hundred feet high. Towards evening no less than thirty bergs were visible from the mast-head; "in fact," said Captain Sellers, "nothing but ice could be seen."

Succession of Gales.

As a rule the Electra was fortunate in her weather, but in 1878, when in command of Captain Thompson, she met with gale after gale, and limped into Port Chalmers after a memorable passage of 140 days. Sailing from Gravesend on January 13th she met her first gale off Start Point, and lost her spare anchor, which broke adrift.page 211 It was January 27th before she took her departure from the Lizard. She had gales across the stormy Bay of Biscay and as far as the Canaries. The Cape was not rounded until March 30th, and then she met light winds from the north and south instead of the usual westerlies, and to vary this exceptional experience she struck two gales, during which much damage was done aboard, including the carrying away of a considerable part of the bulwarks and the losing of several sails.

After passing the meridian of the Leeuwin she encountered a series of gales from the S.W. to S., and was off the Nuggets on May 12th. She ran past the Otago Heads without sighting them, making her first landfall off Moeraki on the 13th, after which she struck a couple of hard gales that drove her off shore. Oamaru was sighted on May 23rd, and when twenty miles off Otago Heads the skipper took the tug Koputai and dropped anchor in Port Chalmers on the 24th, then being 140 days out from Gravesend.

The passages made to New Zealand by the Electra were as follows:—

To Auckland.
Sailed. Arrived. Captain. Days.
Dec. 14, '76 Apr. 11, '77 Thomas 118
To Wellington.
July 17 Oct. 16, '66 Mowlem 91
July 16 Oct. 22, '67 Mowlem 98
July 24 Oct. 21, '68 Mowlem 89
July 9 Oct. 11, '69 Sellers 93
July 17 Oct. 17, '70 Sellers 92
July 12 Oct. 16, '71 Sellers 96
May 25 Sep. 1, '73 Sellers 99
To Dunedin.
Jan. 13 May 24, '78 Thompson 140
Apr. 9 July 21, '79 Thompson 102
To Bluff.
Oct. 28, '81 Feb. 12, '82 Thompson 108
Dec. 4, '82 Mar. 20, '83 Thompson 106