On 12 December, 1987, two years after it was blown up in Auckland Harbour, the Rainbow Warrior was scuttled to become a dive site. The boat was sunk off Matauri Bay, quite close to the Cavalli Islands.
Ports were the beachheads of colonial expansion. No town could
prosper without one. Oamaru Harbour, which closed to shipping in 1974, is the best place in the country to see how and why
all New Zealanders once depended so heavily on sea transport.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the ferry Wahine. With 52 lives lost, this was New Zealand's worst modern maritime disaster. The Wahine’s demise on 10 April 1968 also heralded a new era in local TV news as pictures of the disaster were beamed into Kiwi living rooms.
This timeline lists New Zealand’s worst natural disasters, transport accidents, fires, mining accidents and other tragedies that have caused major loss of life.
The scene opens with the film's title and then a view of the Gothic (ship). We then see the royal couple descending the ships stairs and being welcomed by dignitaries waiting on the dock.
European settlement at Oamaru began in 1853, and in the 1860s the town grew rich servicing pastoralists and gold
miners. Oamaru, though, was no port. Cape Wanbrow, a stubby little headland, gave
some shelter from southerly winds but none from easterlies.
New Zealand's domestic shipping industry played a vital role during the war. A small tributary of the vast British shipping empire, it was largely confined to 'short-sea' (trans-Tasman, South Pacific and coastal) trades.
The Union Steam Ship Company's trans-Pacific liner Niagara in Auckland. Many people believed the deadly flu virus came to New Zealand aboard the Royal Mail liner Niagara, which arrived in Auckland from Vancouver and San Francisco on 12 October 1918.
Although it was waged half a world away, few military campaigns were as vital to New Zealand's interests as the Battle of the Atlantic. A German victory, which would have severed this country's links with Britain, was one of the gravest threats New Zealand has ever faced.
Although many ships sailed between Lyttelton and Wellington during the course of their longer voyages, a regular passenger service between those ports took time to develop.
In 1985 New Zealand was basking in its position as leader of the anti-nuclear movement. Then, on 10 July two explosions, set by French Secret Service agents, ripped through the hull of the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior, preventing it leaving for another protest campaign at Mururoa Atoll.
The Aquitania in Wellington Harbour. This luxurious and fast Cunard Liner served as a troopship during the war and in 1940, when this picture was taken, carried troops of the Second Echelon of 2NZEF.
In December 1809 the sailing ship Boyd was anchored in WhangaroaHarbour. It was attacked by a group of Maori who killed most of its crew and passengers in retaliation for the captain's mistreatment of a young local chief.
Politicians used the ferries to
travel between their electorates and Wellington,
so they scrutinised the Union Steam Ship Company's management of the ships.
Merchant ships plough through the North Atlantic en route to Britain. The convoy system was the linchpin of the Allies' long and hard-fought victory over Germany's U-boats in the Battle of the Atlantic.
The purpose-built Maori of 1907 was a big leap forward,
but description of the cabins was limited to ‘well endowed with spring
mattresses and superior bed coverings' – no showers, toilets or electric
sockets here!
Every night, weather and sea
conditions permitting, two ships crossed in the night at about 1.25 a.m. off the Kaikoura coast as
perhaps 1500 New Zealanders passed quite literally like ships in the night.
Surrounded by some of his crew, Captain Morgan (centre left) of the Awatea offers thanks to the master of the Dutch vessel that evacuated them from the Mediterranean after the New Zealand liner was sunk during Operation Torch in November 1942.
This map of Wellington Harbour is adapted from the original that appeared in the police inquiry report. It shows the location of the Wahine sinking and some key points in the rescue operation.
The German raiders' strikes against shipping in the South Pacific fuelled fears that enemy spies were operating in local ports. Posters, like this, one warned the New Zealand public that 'loose lips might sink ships'.
After spending four days in a lifeboat, seafarers from a torpedoed British merchant ship, the Mentor, about to be rescued in the Gulf of Mexico in early 1942.
The Aquitania is pictured in Wellington Harbour in 1940, which is when this Cunard White Star liner first visited New Zealand to load troops for the Middle East
This imaginative reconstruction of the capture of the ship Boyd in Whangaroa Harbour was painted some 30 years after the event by the French artist Louis Auguste Sainson.
The Lyttelton–Wellington ferries were such a vital link for
travellers that they were given priority whenever strikes or lockouts paralysed
the wharves, but wars disrupted the service.
Les Watson (second from left) stands with other stewards on the new Shaw Savill & Albion (SS&A) liner Ceramic (II), during its maiden voyage to New Zealand in 1948. The first Ceramic had been sunk in 1942, with heavy loss of life.
In the face of competition from other forms of transport the Union Steam Ship Company abandoned its glamour
ferry service, sending the Maori to the
scrappers in 1974.
An escort carrier battles through the Arctic Sea during the winter of 1944–45. The crews of merchant ships and their escorts faced not only the danger of enemy attacks but often fierce gales and huge seas.
Large crowds gathered to watch the departure of every contingent, such as this one which assembled on the wharf at Lyttelton in 1902 to send off the Tenth Contingent.
In 1895 the old Penguin initiated regular sailings
between Lyttelton and Wellington.
Fourteen years later, while running between Picton and Wellington, the Penguin sank with the loss of 75 lives.
As inter-island passengers switched from trains to
private cars in the 1960s, the Maori was converted to a roll-on roll-off
ferry, loading vehicles through a stern door.
Sea shanties, work songs sung on board sailing ships, were a feature of seafaring life in the 19th century. Although most shanties were of British or American origin, some had a distinctly New Zealand flavour.
Montage of sketches depicting life on board an immigrant ship showing emigrants embarking at the London docks, scrubbing the decks, watching a passing ship, dealing with heavy seas, catching an albatross, and queueing at the surgery.
