Compadre (ship)

Last updated

Compadre was an iron barque of 800 tons that was wrecked in the Auckland Islands in 1891.

Contents

Last voyage

Crew

The list of the crew was reported as: [1] [2] [3]

  • David Jones, captain
  • Francis Bath, mate
  • F. Cox, second mate
  • E. A. Roberts, apprentice
  • J. R. Clarkson, apprentice
  • H. Roberts, steward
  • E. Steward
  • H. English, carpenter
  • F. Woods, able seaman
  • J. Harding, able seaman
  • Dugald Black, able seaman
  • F. F. Wright, able seaman
  • F. Englem, able seaman
  • A. Blebler, able seaman
  • John Nummock, able seaman
  • H. Brownett, able seaman
  • Peter Nelson, able seaman

Wreck

The Compadre sailed from Calcutta for Chile on 22 January 1891, with a cargo of jute bags. On 16 March, it was discovered that the cargo had caught fire. The crew poured water into the hold from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. [1] but the fire could not be extinguished.

The captain decided to make for Bluff, New Zealand as this was the nearest port but when the weather worsened on 18 March, the situation became even more precarious. The heavy weather hindered the men manning the pumps as they were constantly being swept away from them by the sea. The pumps were being worked to extract the water that was constantly being poured into the hold to control the fire. Without constant pumping the hold began to fill with water and the ship began to sink.

Land was sighted on the morning of 19 March, [1] and the ship was deliberately aimed at the shore. The ship struck the rocks hard. The boats could not be launched because of the foul weather so the crew had climbed onto the jib boom and when the vessel struck the crew jumped for the rocks. Some received injuries but all 17 crew made it to shore. The ship broke up within 10 minutes. [4]

After climbing the cliff to get up onto the island the crew saw a flagpole and headed towards it. Part way through the journey the last man in the party, Peter Nelson, told the man in front that he was going to lie down and sleep. They agreed that Nelson would light a fire so they could locate him the next day. [5] But no fire was sighted and Peter Nelson did not rejoin the group. [4]

The crew stopped to overnight at a beach and to gather seafood for a meal. The next day after a fruitless search for Peter Nelson the crew found the castaway depot at Erebus Cove. In the depot was a note informing them that the Hinemoa had called the month before. The Hinemoa made regular visits to refresh the depots and to look for shipwreck survivors. This last visit was an attempt to find any survivors of the Kakanui. [6]

The crew split into two with one party remaining with Captain Jones in Erebus Cove and the other party leaving with the mate Bales for Carnley Harbour. The Carnley Harbour group had a hard journey but found the other depot intact. Both parties survived for three and half months until they were both rescued by the arrival of the sealing ship Janet Ramsay on 30 June.

Rescue and inquiry

The Janet-Ramsey arrived at Bluff with the castaways on 6 July 1891. [1] The official inquiry was held at the Courthouse in Invercargill on 9 July before C.E. Rawson, R.M. and Captain N. McDonald, Bluff Harbour master. [5] The sequence of events was confirmed by the testimony of both Captain Jones and Bales but there was a dispute over the cause of the fire.

Both the captain and the mate stated that they thought it likely the fire was caused by the friction of the cargo moving against the ship. The captain stated that jute goods were considered a risky cargo as oil was used in their manufacture and made them liable for combustion. Friction on bales of goods had been discovered during the voyage and canvas had been worked in between the bales and the hold to restrict this and to prevent further damage to the bales.

However, Seaman Woods was deposed he stated that he saw the captain and Seaman Black go down to the hold with a naked candle on the morning of March 16. [5] Soon after the captain raised the alarm of fire and Woods saw that Black was holding a candlestick but with no candle. Woods asked where the candle was and asserted the captain said to say nothing but that he (the captain) had dropped it between the bales. [5]

The other depositions including Black's did not support Woods and inquiry found Woods to be an unreliable witness. The inquiry found that the loss of the ship was caused primarily by the necessity of altering course in order to reach a port once fire was discovered and that the Compadre was run ashore to save the lives of her crew. The court was of the opinion that the master and officers of the ship did all that was possible to save the vessel and they were not to blame for her loss. [5]

Related Research Articles

<i>Marco Polo</i> (1851 ship)

Marco Polo was a three-masted wooden clipper ship, launched in 1851 at Saint John, New Brunswick. She was named after Venetian traveler Marco Polo. The ship carried emigrants and passengers to Australia and was the first vessel to make the round trip from Liverpool in under six months. Later in her career, the ship was used as a cargo ship before running aground off Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, in 1883.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chief mate</span> Licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship

A chief mate (C/M) or chief officer, usually also synonymous with the first mate or first officer, is a licensed mariner and head of the deck department of a merchant ship. The chief mate is customarily a watchstander and is in charge of the ship's cargo and deck crew. The actual title used will vary by ship's employment, by type of ship, by nationality, and by trade: for instance, chief mate is not usually used in the Commonwealth, although chief officer and first mate are; on passenger ships, the first officer may be a separate position from that of the chief officer that is junior to the latter.

<i>General Grant</i> (ship) American bark

General Grant was a 1,005-ton three-masted bark built in Maine in the United States in 1864 and registered in Boston, Massachusetts. It was named after Ulysses S. Grant and owned by Messers Boyes, Richardson & Co. She had a timber hull with a length of 179.5 ft, beam of 34.5 ft and depth of 21.5 ft. While on her way from Melbourne to London, General Grant crashed into a cliff on the west coast of main island of the Auckland Islands of New Zealand, and subsequently sank as a result. Sixty-eight people drowned and only 15 people survived.

<i>Farallon</i> Steamship Disaster

The Farallon Steamship Disaster was the wreck of a wooden Alaska Steamship Company passenger liner, SS Farallon, that hit Black Reef in Cook Inlet in the Territory of Alaska on 5 January 1910. All on board evacuated to a nearby island, where most had to survive for a month in a mid-winter climate before they were rescued. Six other survivors survived an attempt to row across Shelikof Strait in search of rescue for the stranded men.

Seafaring is a tradition that encompasses a variety of professions and ranks. Each of these roles carries unique responsibilities that are integral to the successful operation of a seafaring vessel. A ship's crew can generally be divided into four main categories: the deck department, the engineering department, the steward's department, and other. The reasoning behind this is that a ship's bridge, filled with sophisticated navigational equipment, requires skills differing from those used on deck operations – such as berthing, cargo and/or military devices – which in turn requires skills different from those used in a ship's engine room and propulsion, and so on.

<i>Dundonald</i> (ship) Former British barque

Dundonald was a British four-masted steel barque measuring 2,205 gross register tons launched in Belfast in 1891. It was involved in a wreck in 1907 in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Only 15 of its 28 crew survived; they were rescued seven months later by a scientific expedition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Castaway depot</span> Hut or store used to aid persons lost at sea

A castaway depot is a store or hut placed on an isolated island to provide emergency supplies and relief for castaways and victims of shipwrecks.

The Derry Castle was a 1,367 ton iron barque built at Glasgow in 1883, and initially operating out of Limerick, Ireland. She had been registered there on 19 November 1883 by Francis Spaight & Sons. In 1887 while voyaging from Australia to the United Kingdom with a cargo of wheat, she foundered off Enderby Island, in the subantarctic Auckland Islands, on a reef which now bears her name.

NZGSS <i>Hinemoa</i>

NZGSS Hinemoa was a 542-ton New Zealand Government Service Steamer designed specifically for lighthouse support and servicing, and also for patrolling New Zealand's coastline and carrying out castaway checks and searching for missing ships. It operated in New Zealand's territorial waters from 1876 to 1944.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Bollons</span>

John Peter Bollons was a New Zealand marine captain, naturalist and ethnographer. For many years he captained New Zealand government steamers, including the NZGSS Hinemoa, which undertook lighthouse work and patrols through New Zealand's subantarctic islands. Bollons Island, in the Antipodes Islands, is named after him. In 1928 he was appointed a Companion of the Imperial Service Order.

Grafton was a 56-ton schooner sailing out of Sydney during the 1860s that was wrecked on 3 January 1864 in the north arm of Carnley Harbour, Auckland Island, one of the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands, nearly 480 kilometres (300 mi) south of the South Island. Her castaway crew waited a year for a ship to come to their rescue, which, it soon became apparent, would not come. Six months later, three men decided to set out in a dinghy and managed to cross a distance of 450 kilometres (280 mi) to Stewart Island, 30 kilometres (20 mi) south of New Zealand's South Island. They then funded a rescue mission to pick up their remaining companions. The crew spent a total of 18 months on the sub-Antarctic island and, despite their ordeal, all survived.

The Invercauld was an 1,100-ton sailing vessel that was wrecked on the Auckland Islands in 1864.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition</span> New Zealand scientific expedition

The Sub-Antarctic Islands Scientific Expedition of 1907 was organised by the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury. The main aim of the expedition was to extend the magnetic survey of New Zealand by investigating Campbell Island and the Auckland Islands, but botanical, biological and zoological surveys were also conducted.

Anjou was a 1,642 gross register tons (GRT), French steel barque built in 1899. It was wrecked in the Auckland Islands in 1905.

Spirit of the Dawn was a British 692-ton iron barque that wrecked in the Antipodes Islands on 4 September 1893. She was built at Sunderland in 1869 by T. R. Oswald and Co. and owned by J. Bell and Son of Liverpool.

<i>Queen Bee</i> (ship)

The Queen Bee was a ship, constructed in Sunderland and launched in 1859. It was used primarily for transporting immigrants from England to New Zealand, having made about 11 journeys before grounding on Farewell Spit in 1877.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas Musgrave (castaway)</span>

Thomas Musgrave was the captain of an Australian ship and later a lighthouse keeper, who was wrecked with the brigantine Grafton in the subantarctic Auckland Islands, and cast away there for over 18 months.

<i>Southern Cross</i> (1891 Melanesian Mission ship)

Southern Cross was a three-masted schooner originally built in 1891 for the Melanesian Mission of the Anglican Church and the Church of the Province of Melanesia, and was lost with all hands off King Island, Tasmania in 1920.

<i>Assaye</i> (ship)

Assaye was a barque that was lost with all 25 hands on a voyage from London to Wellington, New Zealand in 1890.

SS <i>Russia</i> (1872) American Great Lakes package freighter

SS Russia was an iron-hulled American Great Lakes package freighter that sank in a Lake Huron gale on April 30, 1909, near DeTour Village, Michigan, with all 22 of her crew and one passenger surviving.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Wreck of the Compadre". Grey River Argus. Greymouth. 7 July 1891. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  2. ↑ "A Rescued Crew". The Star . Christchurch. 7 July 1891. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  3. ↑ "Rescue of Castaways". Otago Witness . Dunedin. 9 July 1891. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  4. 1 2 Eden, A. W. "The wrecks of the Invercauld and the Compadre". Islands of Despair. London: Andrew Melrose. OCLC   165050785.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Loss of Barque Compadre". The Southland Times . Invercargill. 10 July 1891. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
  6. ↑ "Hinemoa could have made but an indifferent search". North Otago Times . 8 July 1891. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.