Matakana Island’s 20
km-long, ocean-facing Panepane Beach - notorious among 19th century
Māori and Pākehā seafarers - posed a serious risk to paddle, sail and steam
powered vessels. The beach formed a featureless, deadly, surf-pounded lee
shore. Some vessels that hove‑to offshore during northeasterly gales often dragged
their anchors on the sandy bottom and were driven ashore there. Others, particularly
smaller sailing vessels under 20 tons that missed the channel entrance, even by
small margins during such gales, were swept sideways onto the beach, rolled and
wrecked.
The 5km beach section
extending north from Panepane Point opposite Mauao | Mount Maunganui continued to claim
shipping well into the 1900s. Had their skeletons remained they would have
stood as a stark warning to careless or drunken skippers and those new to the
Bay of Plenty. However, the many vessels wrecked there soon disappeared from
sight, as the beach sands quickly absorbed their hulls.
Matakana
Island’s Panepane Point and beach from Mount Maunganui across the channel
Built and launched in Glasgow,
Scotland in January 1864, the steamship Penguin was sold to the New
Zealand Steamship Company in 1879. Some 220 feet in length, with a gross
registered tonnage of 749, the steamer became a familiar sight in Tauranga Moana
during 1879 and 1880, as it delivered passengers, freight and mail to and from
the North and South Islands’ east coast ports [1].
On 16 January
1880, New Zealand newspapers reported that the SS Penguin (Captain
Malcolm), had gone ashore while entering Tauranga Harbour close to where the SS
Taupo had been wrecked in February the previous year. Ironically, the Penguin
had been purchased specifically to replace that unfortunate vessel on the return coastal route from Auckland
to Tauranga, Gisborne, Napier, Wellington, Lyttleton and Port Chalmers [2].
The SS Penguin at Port Chalmers
The SS Taupo had gone ashore on Stony
Point Reef at the base of Mount Maunganui where the channel opened into the
harbour (marked today by the statue of Tangaroa, the Polynesian sea god). It sustained
significant damage to the hull in the process and although salvaged, later sank
off Tūhua | Mayor Island. The Penguin, on the other hand, was driven to
starboard while attempting to negotiate the channel during ‘a terrific gale’. It
went aground on a sandbank close to Panepane Spit at the southern end of Matakana
Island’s Panepane Beach [3].
The little SS Staffa (Captain Baker), was at once dispatched from the town to the Penguin's assistance. The mail and passengers were taken off and landed at the town. On 14 January the Auckland Star reported:
The SS Penguin came
off the sand hillock at eleven o'clock this morning, with the assistance of the
steamer Staffa under the command of worthy Captain Baker. No damage was done.
She had not even moved a pound of cargo or coal. Her light kedge came home, or
else she would have got off when she first touched [the Penguin’s light kedge
or emergency anchor had failed to hold and had been dragged across the channel
with the ship] [4].
After
reloading her passengers and mail at the town, the Penguin immediately resumed
her voyage to the southern ports on her itinerary, one editor noting, ‘as the
steamer is built of the best Lowmoor iron it would be almost impossible to
injure her’ [5]. Despite again running
aground during dense fog at Nelson in November 1895, and being refloated
without damage, the SS Penguin was to prove as vulnerable to shipwreck
as any other New Zealand coastal steamer.
The SS Penguin ashore at Nelson in
November 1895
On
February 12, 1909, the SS Penguin (Captain Francis Naylor), struck Thoms
Rock in Cook Strait while navigating during a severe storm. The women and children were loaded into the lifeboats, which were
swamped by the heavy seas. Only one woman and a boy survived. All the other children
drowned. Other survivors came ashore on rafts. As the Penguin sank,
seawater flooded the engine room and, on reaching the boilers, caused a massive
steam explosion.
It was New Zealand's
worst maritime disaster of the 20th century: 75 people lost their lives while
only 30 survived [6].
A
court of inquiry found that Captain Naylor did everything possible to save the lives
of his passengers and crew once the disaster occurred. Ultimately blaming Naylor’s
navigational errors for the disaster, the court suspended his certificate for
12 months.
References
[1] Ingram, C.W.N. New
Zealand Shipwrecks,1795-1975, A.H. and A.W. Reid, Wellington, 1977: 308.
[2] Bay of Plenty
Times, 4 March 1880: 1.
[3] Evening Star,
13 January 1880: 2.
[4] Auckland Star,
14 January 1880: 2.
[5] Manawatu Herald, 16 January 1880: 2.
[6] Ingram, 1977: 308.
Images
Cousins,
John, senior reporter, ‘Panepane Point to be Returned to Hapu’, in Bay of
Plenty Times and Rotorua Post. 26 January, NZ Herald,https://www.nzherald.co.nz › Rotorua Daily Post.
De Maus, David Alexander,
1847-1925: ‘Steamship Penguin at Port Chalmers’. Ref: 1/1-003381-G. Alexander
Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22384677.
Auckland Weekly
News, ‘The Grounding of the SS Penguin: The Vessel on the Rocks outside Nelson
Harbour, April 28,1904’. Record ID AWNS-19040512-12-02. Auckland City Libraries
Heritage Collection.
